Review of The Substitute

"Gayle Richards" (Amanda Donohoe) is a successful high school teacher who comes home from work to celebrate her 10th wedding anniversary with her husband. As she is preparing herself for the occasion she notices a picture of one of her female students in his jacket pocket. So, she tells her husband she has to go away for a few days to see her mother. That evening she catches him in bed with that same student. Feeling betrayed and ridiculed she ends up killing both of them and sets the entire house on fire. After that she leaves New York and drops out of sight for a year and then turns up in a small town in Minnesota under the name of "Laura Ellington". Unfortunately, she is still unable to come to terms with her past and not long afterward sleeps with one of her students named "Josh Wyatt" (Dalton James). Besides being inappropriate it also causes problems for both of them when she starts dating Josh's father, "Ben Wyatt" (Eugene Glazer). At any rate, because this film was a "made-for-television" production it goes without saying that some scenes were toned down to accommodate a general television audience. This caused the film to seem less intense than it could have been. Even so, it was still entertaining to a certain degree and probably merits an average score, all things considered.