At a merciful 81 minutes, “Fourth Grade” comes across like an episode of a bad television show. Written and directed by Brazilian filmmaker Marcelo Galvao and featuring a cast of actors whose careers have seen better days, the film also resembles the stage play “Carnage.” Like the play and the 2011 film version, “Fourth Grade” assembles a group of parents about to go to war with one another. In this case, they are the parents of fourth grade students at a posh Catholic school named The Shepherd of the Palisades in the hilltop Pacific Palisades section of Los Angeles (Thomas Mann once lived up there).
In the opening, we follow Charlie (William Baldwin) in his vintage green Mercedes convertible drive through the neighborhood and arrive with an out-of-place umbrella and a briefcase (most of the other characters also have umbrellas, hmm). Kate (Teri Polo), the next to arrive is the mother of Jacqueline, who has been cast as Belle in a school production of “Beauty and the Beast.”
Kate gets visibly upset when she hears that Wendy, the daughter of another parent named Eddie ( Ben Begley), has been rehearsing Belle’s songs from the show. Eddie and Wendy are newcomers from Newark, N.J. who live with a well-housed uncle. Ben works several part-time jobs to make ends meet. Wendy has gotten into The Shepherd of the Palisades on a scholarship. Bob (Robert Pine) and Vera (Pamela Dunlap) are the elderly parents of an adopted child. The tall and burly Ronnie Adams (Austrian Roland Kickinger) is a father of a student and a popular porn star, who is well known to an enthusiastic Eddie, who also works as a professional player of Fortnite.
When we hear someone remark that “the rain” has arrived, we can’t help but wonder why Charlie doesn’t run out to put his top up. Oh, well. Maybe, it’s a metaphor. The two mothers of one of the students Hilary (Challen Cates) and Lisa (Taja V. Simpson) bicker with each other as much as they bicker with the group. A brick of marijuana is found in the theater space. The group decides that some child must be blamed for the drugs (?). Kate asks Charlie to team up with her and single out “newcomer” Wendy. Someone else suggests a lottery (paging Shirley Jackson). Meanwhile, Ronnie pinches some weed from the brick, and he and eventually most of the other parents light up to “calm down.” Adults doing drugs in an elementary school is probably a felony.
Beyond problems in the dialogue and logic, “Fourth Grade” has other issues. Jokes about grandpa’s oxygen mask and diabetes aren’t funny. Kickinger, who played the T-800 in “Terminator Salvation” (2009), sounds a lot like fellow Austrian Arnold Schwarzenegger. One of the parents, a blonde named Natasha (Boti Bliss), is an actress, and she wants to audition for one of Ronnie’s films (?).
No nuns or priests are to be found or even mentioned in this film. Why is Mena Suvari’s character Barbara wearing an unflattering black hat and wig? Almost the entire film is set in one place, a large room in which about 10 people sit in a circle beneath a large portrait of Christ. Galvao chooses to play “Dance of the Hours” during a nonsensical-in-the-end montage of stoned parents. Does he realize that many of us connect that melody to the novelty song “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh?” In the immortal words of Allan Sherman, “Muddah, Fadduh, kindly disregard this letter.”
(“Fourth Grade” contains profanity and adults appearing to do drugs in an elementary school)
Not Rated. On VOD Grade: C