How far will one teacher go to land a man??
Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz) just finished the school year at John Adams Middle School (JAMS for short, it took me most of the movie to realize what JAMS stood for so I’m putting that out there up front). Her fellow faculty members give her a lovely good-bye party and she heads home to her sugar daddy/fiance Mark (Nat Faxon). Unfortunately, Mark ends the engagement and Elizabeth has no choice but to move into an apartment with a man she met on Craig’s List and resume teaching at JAMS.
Now more than ever, Miss Halsey just doesn’t care. Instead of teaching, she shows school-related movies in class, including: “Lean on Me”, “Dangerous Minds” and even “Scream” (hey it takes place in a school!!). She drinks and sleeps during class and she smokes pot on the school grounds. When she grades papers, she writes comments such as “Stupid”, “Wrong”, “So Stupid”, you get the gist. Unfortunately, her classroom is right across the hall from Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch) who is kind of obnoxious, annoying, a real Little-Miss-Perfect. Miss Squirrel is always pointing out Miss Halsey’s flaws and really, who likes that kind of person anyways?? (She also had an incident back in 2008 which I don’t think was ever fully explained but it seemed like some kind of meltdown).
When Miss Halsey meets Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake), the new school substitute, she thinks she sees her ticket out of JAMS. Scott is rich and Elizabeth wants him to be her new sugar daddy. Add gym teacher Russell Gettis (Jason Segel) into the mix and we have ourselves a love trapezoid (it’s a school movie, just go with it). Both Miss Halsey and Miss Squirrel have the hots for Scott, but Russell only has eyes for Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth sees a picture of Scott’s ex, she thinks the best way to get him to notice her is to get a boob job. So she begins collecting money for the procedure. When fellow teacher Lynn tells her about a bonus that she can earn if her class scores the highest on the state exam, it’s game on for Miss Halsey!! That’s when she becomes like a real teacher, because she has to beat Miss Squirrel (who usually wins the bonus) and get the money for her new boobs!!
The stand-outs in this movie were Kirk (Eric Stonestreet from”Modern Family”) and Lynn (Phyllis Smith from “The Office”). It was funny to see Eric Stonestreet playing a butch, scooter-riding, school-official threatening character, a complete 180 from his character Cameron on “Modern Family”. And I adored Phyllis Smith, she was so straight-laced it was cute to see her opposite Cameron Diaz’s ruthlessness in this movie. I also liked John Michael Higgins as the earnest Principal Snur. And of course, Thomas Lennon was awesome as always as the keeper of the statewide test.
I liked this movie because it didn’t sugar-coat anything. In movies, we often see characters go through some life-changing event and they miraculously morph into some wonderful person. Is real life like that?? Not really!! SPOILER ALERT: Elizabeth didn’t have an epiphany and donate all her hard-earned money to starving children in China. Yes Miss Halsey was a little over-the-top, but so what? She was funny and in the end, she got what she deserved (and so did Miss Squirrel). We all know she is a bad teacher, but was she necessarily a bad person?? I don’t think so.
This movie is rated R for a reason. This one is NOT for the kids. Some examples of the adult content are: many bare boobies, a scene where two characters dry hump each other, and bad language galore.
