You would never expect to laugh out loud if I told you the concept behind Bad Apples: A middle school teacher accidentally kidnaps and locks up one of her ten-year-old troublemakers in her basement after a particularly bad week. In fact, you might think that perhaps I’m misinterpreting the film. But the reality is that, despite an incredibly grim concept, Jonatan Etzler’s first feature-length film is irresistibly laugh-out-loud funny. With Saoirse Ronan leading the film as Maria Spencer, a school teacher struggling after a bad breakup and with an unruly student in her class, Bad Apples takes a series of unfortunate events and watches it snowball out of control from one chaotic moment to the next. Etzler carefully walks the line, taking a dark subject and ratcheting up both the tension and the humor until the two are inextricably linked, making for an entertaining and unpredictably exciting debut.
‘Bad Apples’ Delivers Twist After Twist in a Black Comedy Setting
While watching Bad Apples, I often found myself thinking, “This is the worst thing you could possibly do, don’t do that,” and Maria chooses to do just that. Though the final product seems wildly absurd on paper, watching as the characters, especially Maria, slowly unravel through the svelte 96-minute film doesn’t actually feel so ridiculous. Ronan’s Maria is a passionate and dedicated teacher; she cares about her students and ventures to teach them beyond what is set up in the curriculum. The problem? The class troublemaker: Danny (Eddie Waller). Despite her best efforts, Danny is determined to cause chaos and distract the class, leading to kids getting bullied and lessons being interrupted.
On paper, Maria is the ideal teacher. She notices her students’ talents, nurtures their curiosity, and does her best to discipline Danny without resorting to extreme measures. She’s good-intentioned until she’s pushed to the edge. With an inspection coming soon, events quickly spiral out of control one night when she goes to speak to Danny’s detached father, Josh (Robert Emms), and comes across Danny. One bad decision leads to another, and Danny ends up trapped in Maria’s basement while the town soon embarks on a search for the boy once it’s realized that he’s missing. If it feels like I’m spoiling the film for you — trust me, I’m not. That’s because this one decision sparks a chain reaction that reveals the best and worst of all the characters in this little town.
Saoirse Ronan Shines Across From Newcomer Eddie Waller
The key relationship of Bad Apples revolves around Saoirse Ronan’s Maria and Eddie Waller’s Danny. Initially, Danny comes off as the nightmare student. What Maria does is bad, but Danny is a troubled kid, and it’s hard to even imagine containing him. He’s destructive, violent, and cruel. But, he’s also 10 years old. And the way he acts out isn’t coming out of nowhere. As Maria and Danny adjust to their bizarre new normal, she slowly begins to learn what makes Danny tick, letting the audience in, too. Ronan and Waller are the highlights of the film whenever they’re together. Whether it’s just a scene of Danny screaming from the basement and Maria fretting over her next course of action, or when the two finally come to a brief moment of equilibrium and the best version of both of their characters comes out, it’s undeniable that this is where the film is at its best.
Ronan’s talent has been proven time and time again, so it’s no surprise to see her shining as the soft-spoken and demure Maria Spencer. However, Waller, who is making his debut in Bad Apples, is a rising star. Able to embody both the worst and most caustic side of Danny while also balancing it with a quiet fragility and insecurity, it’s a testament to Waller’s performance that he can make the audience go from being exhausted by Danny to empathising with a poor kid who has been dealt a seriously bad hand in life. It’s made more troubling when we see what he’s like in captivity and the unlikely bond that he forms with Maria as a result of his isolation. Waller’s breakout performance is what ultimately makes Bad Apples so compelling.
It’s Impossible Not to Laugh at ‘Bad Apples,’ Even With Its Dark Subject Matter
Based on the Swedish novel De oönskade by Rasmus Andersson, Jess O’Kane‘s script infuses the story with a pitch-black shade of comedy while never detracting from the emotional stakes of the story. With Danny’s continued absence, the school and Maria’s class, specifically, thrive and succeed. Students are flourishing, and test scores are on the rise. The implication is clear: without Danny around, everyone’s lives seem to be better. But a teacher is only as good as their worst student, and it’s clear that Danny has fallen through the gaps; as Maria becomes aware of this, the already complicated circumstances of Danny’s situation become more entangled.
Similarly, Danny is not the only bad apple in her bunch. A teacher’s pet named Pauline (Nia Brown) takes brown-nosing to an extreme degree as she becomes obsessed with Maria. Pauline is a worthy foil to Danny. While Danny struggles in class and is uninterested in schoolwork, Pauline builds her self-worth on the approval and acceptance of her teacher. She is jealous of students who receive Maria’s praise, and it’s clear that both students need some form of control in their somewhat unstable lives. Where the school puts that responsibility onto Maria’s shoulders, the real onus for discipline should reside on the parents. The subtle critique of parents who are seemingly just as selfish and self-serving as their children is woven into the fabric of the film exquisitely, but loses some of its nuance in the third act of the film.
‘Bad Apples’ Spirals Out of Control at the End, but Doesn’t Completely Lose Its Focus
As the film barrels toward the final moments, Etzler’s story spins out of control, going from a bizarre concept to pure absurdity. Given the buildup to this point, it’s not necessarily an unreasonable change of course, but it pushes the film into a realm of fantasy that doesn’t hold together as tightly as it did in the first and second third of the film. The last act still hammers in on the themes presented in the early parts of the film, but rather than opting for a more overtly somber conclusion, the story wraps up with an abruptly open-ended finale.
It is one of the weakest parts of the film that highlights some of the pitfalls of Bad Apples. Maria’s boss, Sylvia (Rakie Ayola), who acts as a confrontational figure in the first third, fades away toward the end. Similarly, Maria’s co-worker and ex-boyfriend, Sam (Jacob Anderson), is a cookie-cutter character without much depth despite having quite a complicated relationship with Maria. While Bad Apples is funny and smart, much like Maria’s classroom, the film is only as good as its weakest links, and these stumbling blocks prevent it from being an unequivocal hit. Still, there’s much to love about Etzler’s darkly funny feature debut and promising talent both in front of and behind the camera to make it worth a watch.
Bad Apples had its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto Film Festival.
Bad Apples
‘Bad Apples’ is a sharp and darkly hilarious comedy that takes a horrific concept and flips it on its head.
- Release Date
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October 9, 2025
- Runtime
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99 minutes
- Director
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Jonatan Etzler
- Writers
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Jess O’Kane, Rasmus Lindgren
- Saoirse Ronan and Eddie Waller deliver stellar performances as Maria and her kidnapped student, Danny.
- Jonatan Etzler weaves a darkly funny story for his debut feature that is able to balance humor and a biting critique.
- The ending spins the story too far out of control from the first two acts and loses some of its sharpness.
