70
The New York Times by Ben Kenigsberg
School Life is a loving portrait, primarily, of the inspirational educator couple, who command the respect of their students and always seem to know what a particular child needs to hear.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
75
By highlighting sweet, indicative, or hilarious moments rather than tracing the teachers’ relationships with any particular students, the film is more attuned to the rhythms of Headfort than it is the people in it.
38
Slant Magazine by Diego Semerene
School Life is unfortunately committed to keeping its subjects, especially Headfort’s students, at arm’s length.
80
Screen International by Fionnuala Halligan
Childhood is a mystery we endlessly come back to and a place the Leydens have never fully left; Ní Chianáin gives the viewer an intimate view of it in this unusual little story.
91
It certainly succeeds in being a joyous, humane look at the role that school, education, and, most importantly, teachers have in the lives of such malleable minds.
70
There’s considerable poignancy in the contrast between this eccentric pair’s mutual sense that their lives are winding down and the vast, still-unshaped futures of their young charges, but Ní Chianáin’s film largely resists sentimentality of the “Greatest Love of All” variety.
75
In Loco Parentis is a warm work of cinéma vérité.
83
Maybe it won’t exist in Ireland much longer either, so it’s a good thing that School Life manages to capture its weird, wonderful world.
70
The Hollywood Reporter by Neil Young
A conventionally mounted tribute to a genial, decidedly British form of eccentricity.
80
School Life is a bit woolly in its pacing, but the picture’s easygoing structure is part of its charm—it mimics, perhaps, the passage of time at Headfort itself.