On Thursday, August 22, the TNT-PREMIER service will begin showing Teachers, a multi-part drama about the problems of the Russian education system and the difficulties of an individual family. The director and script of the project were Ilya Kulikov (“Policeman from Rublevka”), produced by Valery Fedorovich and Evgeny Nikishov (“Cheating”, “Chernobyl: Exclusion Zone”). The series consists of 12 episodes and will be released online on Thursdays.
In the center of the plot of the “Teachers” is the story of two girls, the daughters of a senior official and five minutes to the Minister of Education Sergey (Vladimir Vdovichenkov).
The youngest daughter, Maria (Irina Starshenbaum), is trying to prove to the whole world that she is able to break through life on her own, without the money and connections of her father. The heroine works in a regular school as a teacher of Russian language and literature, earns money at the airport at the counter in the VIP lounge (you can’t get far with a teacher’s salary) and lives in splendid isolation. Rather, with a cat.
The eldest daughter, Tatyana, performed by Anna Kotova-Deryabina, chose a different life. Tatyana - careerist, Ph.D. and head of the legal department at a higher educational institution. She takes advantage of her father’s position without much embarrassment. The girl treats her husband and son rather coolly, abuses alcohol and has problems with accepting herself. However, all this does not prevent her from sincerely loving her sister and father.
The plot of the series is Tatyana’s conflict with the mother of the student who is on the verge of expulsion. The head of the department refuses to indulge a negligent student. There is a quarrel between the women, during which the mother of the student pushes Tatyana from the stairs, and she receives several serious injuries. A senior dad comes to understand what has happened - and during the conflict the character and capabilities of the hero Vdovichenkov are fully disclosed.
- © Sergey Karpenko
The official, not embarrassed, right at the police station under the investigator intimidates the aggressor. Now her son is threatened by an army somewhere "away from Moscow." This, by the way, is not the only episode in the first series when the deputy minister exceeds his authority. Sergei, in fact, doesn’t care at all what others want: “If you don’t want to, we will force you, you cannot teach, we will teach you.”
The creators of the series position it as a drama, "covering in detail the pressing problems of high school and universities." In the first series, they really raise the issue of bribes in universities, demonstrate an example of protectionism and the banal abuse of power. The situation with small teachers' salaries looks even more acute after the hero's recognition that he contains a mistress with budget money.
By the way, the image of an official in Vdovichenkov turned out to be as controversial as the image of the entire educational system in his person (doubtful both from a moral and legal point of view).
The deputy minister constantly looks from underneath and throws around the phrases in the style of the heroes of the "Brigade": "I will not decide - no one will decide." At the same time, it is not clear whether the official was tired of his position, whether Vdovichenkov was tired of harshly raising his eyebrows, or the director was not sure what exactly he wanted from the actor.
Tatyana, the eldest daughter, has not yet completely switched to the "dark side" of the system, but she is struggling to drown her conscience by going to night clubs, having sex for one night and drinking alcohol. Anna Kotova-Deryabin makes all of the above implausible (drunk, for example, plays as if she had learned to portray alcohol intoxication on parodies).
- © Sergey Karpenko
The bright side of the story, certainly a positive hero - Maria - is also unlikely to earn the trust of the viewer. Already suspiciously weak motivation for her actions.
The heroine is trying to explain to a colleague in Sheremetyevo what teaching means to her, and she does it awkwardly: "A teacher is the most important thing that can be in life." Such pathos would be appropriate if Mary was a freshman in university or suffered from a lack of mind. But the scriptwriters conceived Maria smart, decisive, ready to fight injustice, capable of rebuffing not only the arrogant school head teacher, but also her father. All the more ridiculous are her idealism and attempts to impose her independence on a system, the inside of which she knows too well.
Mary's actions run counter to both philosophy within the family and common sense. In the future, having the opportunity to change the education system from the inside, she prefers the role of a simple teacher in an average school. However, the heroine likes to teach - and this, apparently, is the main thing.
Surprising is the almost complete absence in the series of humor on social topics. At some point, it seems that the characters were too diligently laid in the image and they forgot about it: the world is not divided into black and white.
However, it is possible that from the second series the eyes of the scriptwriters turn to the texture and secondary characters. Indeed, the topic, indeed, was touched on by a very interesting and close viewer: if he does not study at school or university, his children or grandchildren are likely to study there.