Private Lesson Review: Stylish Without Substance

Private Lesson (Özel Ders) is a romantic-comedy movie directed by Kivanç Baruönü, written by Murat Disli and Yasemin Erturan, and stars Bensu Soral, Halit Özgür Sarı and Helin Kandemir, alongside other cast members. The movie has a runtime of 89 minutes.

Netflix’s description of the movie reads:

Posing as a private tutor, Azra secretly coaches students on achieving their goals in life and love — but not without a few bumps in the road.

– Private Lesson Review Does Not Contain Spoilers –

There is no space for subtlety in Private Lesson. It jumps head first into Azra and her profession and swiftly gives Hande and us a rundown into what is going to happen in the next 1 and a half hours. She also conveniently meets Burak, her to-be love interest, within the first 15 minutes, and he’s as much of an annoying ‘alpha male’ as you’d expect.

Anyway, Burak isn’t important in this story. However, Hande, Azra’s next little project, is as much of an annoying, snoopy loser as you’d expect. It’s fine that she wants to be comfortable and different, but in her effort to be ‘not like other girls’, she insults other women and calls them vain. However, she wants the same things as them, so you know, teenage hypocrisy.

The story flows at an impossible pace, which is a godsend for such movies. There’s so little substance here that it is mind-boggling that it translates to a feature-length movie. Before long, Hande, the cute virgin with a book fetish, is slamming tequilas at a party, and you know the upcoming conflict will most definitely come from her.

It’s extremely cliché and absolutely nothing new. Weirdly enough, the life coach is the most normal of the lot, with acceptable boundaries and a fiery temper. It’s a sad day when I relate to the annoying protagonist of such movies, but the others are just so over-the-top that she seems like the only person you can have a conversation with.

Scenes that are supposed to be funny turn out to be rather annoying and go on and on for too long. It loses its charm after a while. However, I did find Azra repeating Hande’s mistakes to be rather endearing and oddly cute. She is the only one who delivers some funny still, and you do smile at her clumsiness when she faces similar situations.

Towards the movie’s end, Azra faces several obstacles on her path to save her little minions. Her passion to help them is interesting, but man, these kids have no idea how to do anything, do they? Either way, the movie ends on a high with things smoothening over conveniently and quickly. Before things get too bad, Azra has everything under control.

Summing Up: Private Lesson

If you’re in the mood for something light and breezy that won’t make you think about anything, this is the perfect one to watch. It looks great, and everyone is very stylish. Bensu Soral looks like a dream, so if you need style inspiration today without paying attention to the story, this is the one to watch.

Private Lesson is streaming on Netflix.

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