Movie review: A high-school comedy - from the teachers' point of view

Most high school comedies exalt teenagers and ignore (if not insult) teachers. "Chalk" offers a refreshing new perspective on the class struggle, showing it from the vantage point of the beleaguered folks behind the big desk.

Shot in the style of wandering-camera verite -- think "The Office" by way of the principal's office -- writer/director Mike Akel's film follows four teachers through the academic year. There's Mr. Lowrey (Troy Schremmer), a newcomer whose background in computers hasn't equipped him to work with actual people; grownup class clown Mr. Stroope (co-writer Chris Maas), who salivates for the Teacher of the Year award; short-haired gym instructor Coach Webb (Janelle Schremmer), who repeatedly mentions that she is definitely not gay, and the newly promoted assistant principal, Mrs. Reddell (Shannon Harrigan), so overburdened that she confides to the camera, "I haven't had sex in three months."

The tone of the piece is the fiercely funny comedy of embarrassment. Lowrey's awkward greeting to his new class will have you reliving every episode of social ineptitude you've ever stumbled through. The characters are worthy of a Christopher Guest mockumentary: officious, insensitive to their own annoying faults, but caring and committed for all that.

The script is shot through with genuine-seeming teacher thought, teacher language and teacher feeling. I count many teachers among my friends and relations, and the brain-stiffening jargon, the grouchy power plays and the humdrum annoyances that build to torture from September to June ring utterly true.

The film has faith in the educational process, if not blind faith in its practitioners. Lowrey's early months are disastrous, but he eventually finds a sympathetic tutor in a student's mother. Coach Webb, who prowls the hallways, walkie-talkie at the ready while looking for tardy students, sort of gets the message that she's driving the rest of the staff crazy. Stroope, who connects well with his students but doesn't really know much, figures out that it takes more than rapport to make a teacher.

"Chalk" is such a humane, perceptive comedy that you wish other filmmakers would take a lesson.

Colin Covert • 612-673-7186

Colin Covert • ccovert@startribune.com