The Lesson

Needs must is the lesson provincial Bulgarian teacher Margita Gosheva learns in this darkly droll thriller fashioned around an actual event. Distracted from identifying a classroom thief by her own sudden financial embarrassment, Gosheva feels unable to ask her father (Ivan Savov) for a loan to meet a mortgage payment after her drunken husband (Ivan Burnev) squanders her meagre savings. But a series of cruel coincidences conspire to make her miss a deadline with a loan shark that compels the morally upright 30-something to resort to desperate measures. Taking their tonal cues from the Dardenne brothers and Christian Petzold, writer/directors Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov ably capture the claustrophobia and corruption of small-town life and, by keeping the camera close to Gosheva, they succeed in making her compelling, even though she is somewhat starchily unsympathetic. A couple of contrivances feel clumsy, while some of the support playing is a touch caricatured. But the suspense is superbly maintained as the excellent Gosheva struggles to stay on her pedestal.