Underplayed Gems

The Lesson (2023)

The Lesson poster
Directed by
Alice Troughton
Genre
thriller, drama
Country
Germany, United Kingdom
Runtime
1h 42m
Rated
R
Rating
5.8 of 10 from 84 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

An aspiring writer is hired to tutor the teenage son of a famous novelist and his artist wife at their country estate. As the tutor becomes entangled in the family's dynamics, tensions and secrets begin to surface.

tenseslow-burnclaustrophobicmoodycerebralunsettlingdarkcharacter-driven

What happens

The Lesson is a 2023 British psychological thriller film written by Alex MacKeith, directed by Alice Troughton and starring Richard E. Grant, Julie Delpy and Daryl McCormack. In the way that the movie is structured, it is similar to a play: there are only five key characters and almost the entire story takes place in one location. The story is centred around the interaction between five main characters: an Oxford graduate, Liam Somers -an aspiring writer- who is employed as a tutor by a wealthy family living in a large house in the countryside; their teenage son, Bertie Sinclair, who is to be tutored by Liam; and, finally, the son’s parents, who are a famous British writer, J.M. Sinclair and his French wife Hélène, who is an artist. The family employs a near-silent and enigmatic butler, Ellis, who is the fifth character: a person who sees everything but says nothing. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

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