“The Kindergarten Teacher” and the Frustrations of Being An Artist

Netflix’s Maggie Gyllenhaal-led film is a character study of a woman who struggles with the frustrations of being an artist.

Released on October 12th, Netflix’s The Kindergarten Teacher follows the life of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Lisa Spinelli, a gentle and attentive kindergarten teacher who takes a continuing-studies poetry seminar at night. Her life suddenly changes when she discovers that one of the children in her class, Jimmy, is a gifted poet, able to compose entire poems seemingly at an instance, which puts her own already-rudimentary poetry to shame.

She doesn’t mind, though; she’s content with being the one-person support system she thinks he needs. “Mozart was nurtured by Kings and Queens. They massaged his tired hands, they fed him candy while he played the piano”, she tells Jimmy’s uncaring, practical father. “Jimmy doesn’t have that.” So Lisa becomes that for Jimmy, transcribing Jimmy’s poems when they come to him, bringing him to poetry readings, taking him on field trips to see the beauties of the world, all “in the name of his talent.”

Here, Lisa is faced with many conflicts and frustrations that are perhaps best understood by those daring enough to call themselves artists: