There are movies that are tame — and then there are movies like Bad Apples , a film so off-the-wall and wild that it doesn’t ask us to put on seatbelts before hitting the gas. With a premise that involves a primary school teacher, Maria (the always exceptional Saoirse Ronan), locking her most troublesome student, Danny (Eddie Waller), in her basement, the film, directed by Jonatan Etzler from a screenplay by Jess O’Kane, is one of the best dark comedies I’ve seen in a while. It’s also one that is surprisingly thrilling in its execution.
Maria is stressed at school. On a class trip to a cider-making facility, Danny throws a shoe in the conveyor belt full of apples. It’s this scene that opens one of the most delightfully unhinged films of the year. We immediately relate to Maria’s fru