# Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999)

### reviewed by
Scott Renshaw

TEACHING MRS. TINGLE (Dimension) Starring: Helen Mirren, Katie Holmes, Barry Watson, Marisa Coughlan, Jeffrey Tambor, Michael McKean. Screenplay: Kevin Williamson. Producer: Cathy Konrad. Director: Kevin Williamson. MPAA Rating: PG-13 (profanity, violence, sexual situations, adult themes) Running Time: 95 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.

Kevin Williamson needs to remember why he was in a position to direct a film in the first place. On the big screen, Williamson made buckets of money for Dimension Films by writing SCREAM and SCREAM 2; on television, he helped raise the WB network's profile by creating "Dawson's Creek." In both cases, he managed the nifty trick of subverting the conventions of a genre -- teen horror and teen angst melodrama, respectively -- while still satisfying the traditional audience for each. TEACHING MRS. TINGLE, an early Williamson script dusted off for his first stint in the director's chair, seems to have been written before Williamson figured out tone and avoiding cliches. As a teen drama, it's soggy and predictable; as a thriller, it's a soggy and predictable teen drama; as a comedy, it's a soggy and predictable teen drama.

Williamson's "Dawson" ingenue Katie Holmes stars as Leigh Ann Watson, a high school senior counting on her academic excellence to get her out of her dead-end small town. Standing in her way is Mrs. Tingle (Helen Mirren), a nightmarish history teacher from whom no one is safe. When an innocent Leigh Ann is caught in a compromising position with a stolen final exam, Mrs. Tingle appears ready and eager to destroy her. Leigh Ann's best friend Jo Lynn (Marisa Coughlan) and surly stud Luke (Barry Watson) have other ideas, however, and pay Mrs. Tingle a home visit. That visit soon goes dreadfully wrong, ending with Mrs. Tingle tied to her own bed and the three students seeking a way out of the mess.

You might be expecting a dark satirical comedy from that set-up, or perhaps a humor-laced thriller. Either choice might have salvaged TEACHING MRS. TINGLE, which instead opts for absurd sincerity. Williamson is careful to place Leigh Ann's anxieties and moral quandaries at the forefront of every scene, delving into her insecurities at being the daughter of a single mother waitress (an uncredited Lesley Ann Warren). Holmes is an appealing actress, but she's stuck looking pensive and wounded much of the time, thinking deep thoughts while the soundtrack blares with angsty rock. Her ostensible growth from timid schoolgirl to self-assured woman is the heart of the film, and a frighteningly weak heart it is. Introspection and depth of character has rarely felt such a bore, or so wildly inappropriate.

Sadly, the same could be said for Helen Mirren's performance as Mrs. Tingle. At the outset, she's the manifestation of every high school survivor's nightmares of unforgiving instructors. Mirren goes for the jugular with every line, and she has some fantastic moments. Williamson, unfortunately, isn't sure quite what to do with her. At times, she's an inhuman demon, smacking Luke around and returning from the dead like Michael Meyers. At other times, she's an insidious Hannibal Lecter-like psychological game-player, or an object of ridicule when the teens discover her dominatrix relationship with the football coach (Jeffrey Tambor). And in the final, worst possible decision, she becomes a vaguely pathetic victim of her own tormented past. The many sides of Eve Tingle don't add up to a multi-faceted character. They add up to confusion.

Williamson's inability to figure out Mrs. Tingle is exemplary of his inability to figure out much of anything in the film. The farcical gags with Tambor's masochistic coach are over-played, especially when juxtaposed with Leigh Ann's sympathy for the coach's unsuspecting wife. Only Marisa Coughlan truly emerges unscathed, sparking her every scene as the theatrical Jo Lynn. Coughlan's funky energy, and Williamson's fairly effective pacing, keep inspiring the hope that something entertaining will be just around the corner. Instead, there's only a sort-of-thriller, a not-quite-comedy, and a story ultimately about how someone learns an important lesson in self-acceptance, and not to steal her best pal's guy. Even when he's flopping, Williamson is still subverting genre expectations. He's taken a provocative dark comedy thriller and turned it into mush.

         On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 teacher's pests:  4.

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