Avis des critiques

A low-key and intelligent character study, "Miss Stevens" doesn't escape from its indie-film commonplaces often enough to become really distinctive, but it has enough conscientiousness about its people that it doesn't let the commonplaces fester into movie-sinking clichés.

You half expect it to become either an inspirational tale of a grown-up changing troubled young lives, or an irreverent tale of an unqualified deadbeat screwing things up. Instead, Hart portrays the unquantifiable nature of disappointment, success and adulthood. It's a tight, unnerving and deceptively complex movie about broken people just managing to get by, and at the center of it all is Rabe's transfixing presence.

If it's Miss Stevens's job to breed consciousness and a certain sensibility in her students, then "Miss Stevens" finds a comparable role for the filmmaker to provide the materials for discussion without directing the viewer toward a particular solution or easy answer.

Rachel is a lonely woman in mourning for her mother, with a fragile veneer of quiet yearning and awkward energy; when that veneer cracks, the effect is powerful despite its air of calculation. Rachel's scenes with Billy have little drama other than her resolve not to cross any lines, but her tense discussions with Walter (Rob Huebel), another teacher at the conference, offer substance to ponder beyond the story's narrow limits.