‘The Education of Jane Cumming’ Review: A Compelling Dramatization of the True Story Behind ‘The Children’s Hour’

Lillian Hellman’s landmark 1934 play “The Children’s Hour” has twice been adapted for the big screen, both times by director William Wyler, and neither film really did right by it. The Hays Code could be blamed for the absurdly straightwashed watering-down of the 1936 version “These Three,” and while 1961’s “The Children’s Hour” could be […] Home Film News Feb 20, 2026 2:10pm PT ‘The Education of Jane Cumming’ Review: A Compelling Dramatization of the True Story Behind ‘The Children’s Hour’ Talented up-and-comer Mia Tharia plays an outcast child whose incautious words ruin the lives of two lesbian schoolmistresses in Sophie Heldman's sensitive period piece. By Guy Lodge Plus Icon Guy Lodge Film Critic @guylodge Latest ‘Flies’ Review: Family Crisis Disrupts a Woman’s Solitude in Fernando Eimbcke’s Lovely, Lingering Charmer 2 days ago ‘Nina Roza’ Review: An Eerily Doubled, Intricately Mirrored and Deeply Moving Reflection on Immigrant Identity 4 days ago ‘The Blood Countess’ Review: A Hilarious Isabelle Huppert Fully Puts the Vamp Into Vampire 4 days ago See All Courtesy of Heimatfilm Lillian Hellman’s landmark 1934 play “The Children’s Hour” has twice been adapted for the big screen, both times by director William Wyler, and neither film really did right by it. The Hays Code could be blamed for the absurdly straightwashed watering-down of the 1936 version “These Three,” and while 1961’s “The Children’s Hour” could be more open about the same-sex attraction driving its tragedy of ruinous gossip, it was still timidly ginger around the subject. In her handsome, stirring sophomore feature “The Education of Jane Cumming,” German filmmaker Sophie Heldman bypasses the Hellman play entirely to shed light on the real-life 19th-century case that inspired it — a tale defined not just by societal homophobia but colonial-era racism. The result is easily the most satisfying screen outing yet for this story material: a classically well-made and affectingly performed period drama that should enjoy a long festival run after its premiere in Berlin’s Panorama program, with strong distribution prospects in both the general arthouse and LGBT-specific spheres. While Clare Dunne and co-writer Flora Nicholson give fine, quietly anguished leading turns as teachers and lovers whose lives are undone by a malicious rumor, with Fiona Shaw offering ripe grande dame support as their chief persecutor, it’s rising star Mia Tharia — soon to be seen in Taika Waititi’s “Klara and the Sun” — who impresses most in the trickily nuanced title role of their initially adoring, eventually vengeful teenage charge. Popular on Variety The illegitimate mixed-race daughter of a working-class Indian woman and an aristocratic Scottish military man stationed in India, 15-year-old Jane has recently been shipped to Britain following the deaths of both her parents, and placed in the care of her haughty, resentful grandmother, Lady Cumming Gordon (Shaw), in Edinburgh. The year is 1810, and needless to say, these aren’t welcoming times for women in color in the upper classes: Her grandmother’s solution is to keep Jane out of sight and out of mind in an exclusive girls’ boarding school, together with her snooty white cousins. The school in question is a brand-new one, a passion project founded by progressive educators Miss Pirie (Nicholson) and Miss Woods (Dunne), with the intention of providing young women with the well-rounded education largely deemed unnecessary for them by the authorities. (Lady Cumming Gordon sides with the system: Shaw’s moue of disapproval upon learning that Pirie and Woods teach maths but not dancing is a rare comic flourish in the film.) The student body is small — viewers may recognize “Aftersun” star Frankie Corio in the ensemble — though big enough for a spirit of bullying and side-taking to soon take root against Jane, victimized for her dark skin and comparatively exotic wardrobe. (Costume designer Peri De Braganca artfully marks this clash of worlds in fabric, clothing Jane in drapey, overdyed cottons in deep ochres and burnt brick tones, a whole palette apart from the pale, misty pastels and stiff silhouettes of the other girls’ wardrobe.) Pirie and Woods, however, treat her with gentleness and respect, and it’s not long before Jane — delighted to learn she shares a first name with Miss Pirie — forms a bond with them, deepened over the course of a summer vacation that sees her left in her teachers’ care while the other girls go home. Already, then, the lonely, vulnerable Jane is a far cry from the vindictive young troublemaker she inspired in Hellman’s play. A perceptive child, she’s attuned to the quiet but clear current of non-platonic affection between the two women she looks up to, and wishes, in her own naive way, to share in it — though when Pirie and Woods, leery of the girl’s growing attachment to them, start treating her with more professional distance, Jane feels all the more wounded and isolated for what she perceives as their rejection. Heldman and Nicholson