4 out of 5

Written by: Kristen Dunphy and Alice Addison

The Principal is an amazingly tense and well-acted 4-part mini-series that almost sinks itself with its complexities – stuffed to the gills with topical and localized subject matter – but manages to circle back around in its final episode to justify most of the ins and outs and come to a satisfying conclusion.

Alex Dimitriades plays Matt Bashir, newly elected principal of a troubled school in West Sydney, after the previous person in his position left post being threatened at gunpoint by a student.  Yes, it’s that kind of place, and right away, with Bashier strutting around the school and taking the teachers – not the students – to task for mishandling their responsibilities to the children, we’re set for this to be a modern Dangerous Minds, given a unique Australian POV that involves an insane melting pot of religions and cultures clashing with one another in and out of the school.  Alex plays Matt to just the right edge of confidence, and the script supports a believable approach that doesn’t paint the leader as any type of saint or superhero; similarly, while the other teachers initially seem to be painted as bad guys, patience with their roles exposes (for the most part) the Whys of how they got to their disgruntled positions, making their responses – maybe not acceptable – but understandable from context.  In other words, events don’t feel so sensationalized as to take us out of the partnership role of the viewer, where we get to ask ourselves how we’d respond in similar situations, and perhaps shamefully admitting that we’d have the same negative reaction.

The middle of the series gets wrapped up in a mystery involving the death of a student, and here’s where the series gets incredibly heady with its politics, then dragging Matt into the mud of the mystery, playing a bit too much he-said she-said to let us keep it straight, and enough to make us wonder what the focus of the series really is supposed to be.  The school scenes sing; the investigation is interesting but feels like too much to tack onto things.  Thankfully, the need for exploring the potential cultural motives, as well as elements from Bashir’s past, that may have informed the crime do end up feeling important to the whole picture, rescuing The Principal from being that Dangerous Minds knock-off and becoming something much more comprehensive and thoughtful.

While a couple of extra episodes might’ve helped to make the mini-series feel a bit more focused through and through, the writers nonetheless demonstrate a strong grasp of where they’re going, and effectively – for the series length – determine how we’re going to get there.  Our path from there to here is kept compelling by an intense and unique soundtrack, solid cinematography and direction, and very human, relatable acting, especially from Mr. Dimitriades, playing the lead.