Metacritic reviews

A gripping story of idealism battered by bruising reality, high-handed authority and arrogant, misguided students who organize themselves to achieve maximum chaos, “Lounge” is a cautionary slice of education in an “Every parent’s an expert” era.

Rather than a pileup of bad behavior, the screenplay offers shifting perspectives as to who’s being sensible and who isn’t, who means well but executes badly, with few characters falling unequivocally into the camp of “right” or “wrong.”

There’s no other word than mesmerizing for what Leonie Benesch accomplishes here in The Teachers’ Lounge.

Taking on the uneasy complexity of a progressive modern society, and the friction produced when pluralism and an insistence on order and obedience collide, is a bold move, and The Teachers’ Lounge pulls it off with a sense of tension that makes the whole thing play like a thriller.

It’s an exemplary film that strikes an emotional and thoughtful chord.

Ilker Çatak, a German writer-director of Turkish descent, has shrewdly crafted a taut and tight examination of the concept of justice folded into an absorbing character study.

It boasts some of the nerve-wracking anxiety of Uncut Gems and the keenness of last year’s standout Playground, even if it doesn't eventually pull off its delicate tightrope act.

While Ilker Çatak’s The Teacher’s Lounge makes full use of the dramatic possibilities inherent in its setting, it doesn’t exceed its remit by turning the story into a referendum on society.

The Teachers’ Lounge flows very well, and the story is quite effective, leaving viewers intrigued, engaged, and as eager as its protagonist to find the truth and answers to what is happening at the school.

The effect is undeniably tense and thrilling, yet one wonders whether the point, which was so splendidly articulated by Jean Vigo in Zéro de conduite, is here stated as soundly and forcefully as it might have been.