The Tutor | 2023 | R | – 5.5.6

Why is “The Tutor” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “language, some violence and sexual material.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes photos of implied sex between a man and underage teen girls, an exotic dance club with partial nudity, a few kissing scenes, accusations of sexual relationships between adults and teens, a shooting, an implied drowning, arguments that lead to pushing and fighting with some injuries shown, discussions of suicide and murder, and over 15 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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A well-known tutor (Garrett Hedlund) accepts work at a billionaire’s mansion and after a short time his student (Noah Schnapp) becomes obsessed with him, stalks him, and begins probing his life history uncovering guarded secrets. Also with Jonny Weston, Victoria Justice, Joseph Castillo-Midyett, Ekaterina Baker, Kabby Borders, Kamran Shaikh and Exie Booker. Directed by Jordan Ross. [Running Time: 1:32]

The Tutor SEX/NUDITY 5

 – A man finds several pictures of himself on his own camera and we see that he is passed out and shirtless on a bed with a couple of nearly nude underage teen girls, each straddling his abdomen (we see the side of one breast, lower bare buttocks, a bare shoulder, arm, back and thigh, and the man’s bare chest and abdomen).
► A man and a woman lie under bed covers (both are clothed), kiss goodnight, and go to sleep. A man and a woman kiss briefly.
► A teen boy tries to trick his male tutor into making sexual advances toward him, offering him large amounts of cash to keep working throughout the summer, standing too close to him, proclaiming loneliness since his parents are always absent, and looking at him adoringly. A teen boy sits in long-sleeved pajamas on a couch with a man and lays his head, sobbing, on the man’s thigh (both are clothed); he then leaves the room after the man pats his shoulder.
► A woman is pregnant (we see her bulging belly under clothing) and she makes it clear that she wants to get married, but the man does not. A woman tells a man that it has been illegal to be pregnant out of wedlock in most U.S. states until recently, and they both hug and say, “I love you.”
► A teen boy says about a teen girl to a man sitting with them, “You like Teddi? She has to obey me. You can have her,” and the man says no. A teen boy asks a man to take a picture of him and the man reluctantly does.
► A teen boy accuses a man of improper advances toward him, but no such actions are shown. A man tells a teen boy that he had an affair with the boy’s mother and she became pregnant. A teen boy in a different scene asks a man, “Are you worried about having a bastard?” and the man won’t discuss it.
► A man visits an exotic dance club and a woman is seen on her hands and knees wearing a bra and thong underwear (we see cleavage, lower buttocks and thighs) as she writhes and jiggles to loud music. A man wearing baggy shorts sits on a couch with a woman wearing a mid-thigh-length dress and she has one leg thrown over his lap. A teen girl wears a tight V-neck sweater that emphasizes her cleavage, with a tight pleated miniskirt and we see most of her bare thighs. A young man at a pool wears knee-length shorts and an open shirt (we see his bare chest and abdomen). A woman on a chaise lounge wears a dress that ends at mid-thigh.

The Tutor VIOLENCE/GORE 5

 – A man receives a call from a teen boy to meet him and the two argue until another teen hits the man in the back of the head with a poker and the man falls unconscious; when he revives, the boys taunt and threaten to kill him and the man shouts, grabs one boy’s leg, they fight and the man chokes the boy with a poker across the throat killing him (we see the boy later on a gurney, being covered with a sheet); the other teen runs outside into the night as the man pursues him through the house and outside with the poker and the boy hides under a metal grid above a small boat, the man pounds on it threatening, but he is interrupted by a woman that he also threatens to kill; the man is shot in the back (blood spurts) and he falls into a lake (the camera follows him as he sinks to the bottom).
► A man eats drugged fruit, passes out, and wakes up drowning in a lake; we see his vision blur from his point of view after eating the fruit, he stumbles and falls onto the floor, and the scene cuts to him choking in the water at night, crawling out to a highway and hitchhiking home. Divers search a lake for a body to no avail while police search the surrounding area.
► A teen boy shrieks for several seconds, pounding his own thigh with a first, and later tells police that his tutor bruised his thigh (we do not see the bruises). A man confronts a teen boy on a street corner, and they both shout and curse for several seconds; the man shoves the boy, another teen boy tells the man to leave and the man points at the first teen and says, “I’ll hurt you!” We see video footage of a man wearing a hoodie that covers his face, grabbing a teen boy in an alley, throwing him to the ground, and punching and kicking him (no injuries are seen); the man being accused of the beating cries and denies that he is the man in the footage.
► We hear that a woman was “sent away,” but later hear that she was killed when struck in the head and thrown into a lake (we see none of this). A woman shouts at a man and tells him that a teen boy told her that his dead mother had dated the first woman’s boyfriend, and that he killed her; she says the boy said that the man is unstable and he tells her that the woman’s death was suicide, but the first woman ejects the man from her house and he leaves cursing and pounding on his steering wheel. A man breaks into a house through a glass-paneled door (we hear glass shatter), he finds some strawberries that he thinks are drugged, to use as evidence, but police arrive and arrest him.
► A teen boy stalks a man and a woman, who are expecting a baby, and has pictures of them hugging on his computer. A man quits a tutoring job, but is accused of crimes he did not commit. A man’s boss fires him because a teen accused him of assault and inappropriate behavior. A man and a woman argue, she yells several times and he becomes very angry and shouts. A teen boy and a man exhibit continually building tension. A teen boy overhears a man calling the teen psychotic and bipolar in a crowded restaurant and walks up to the table, where people become silent, and then leaves. A man says a teen boy “must be on the spectrum.” A teen boy slams a large amount of money against a man’s chest and leaves. A teen boy meets with a tutor daily for a week and we later hear that the boy’s mother is dead and the father died three years previously of cancer. A man and a teen boy argue briefly in several scenes. Two men argue briefly. A man and another man argue loudly and the second man pushes the first man off his property.
► A teen boy practices sword fighting with a fake sword. An old house has creaking floors and eerie background music accompanies several scenes.

The Tutor LANGUAGE 6

 – About 15 F-words and its derivatives, 5 scatological terms, 2 anatomical terms, 5 mild obscenities, name-calling (crazy, weird little kid, whore, racist, old, romance killer, psycho, pathetic puppy dog), exclamations (whoa, wow), 6 religious profanities (GD), 10 religious exclamations (e.g. Jesus Christ, oh my God, my God, God, Holy [scatological term deleted]). | profanity glossary |

The Tutor SUBSTANCE USE

 – A man eats drugged fruit and later says the drug may have been Tetrahydrozoline that causes unconsciousness and coma (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). Several men and women in a restaurant sip glasses of wine and a man drinks whiskey, a man in an apartment drinks a beer, a man in a car drinks from an almost empty bottle of clear liquor, two decanters of brandy are seen on a side table in a house, we hear that a man has a drinking problem and is trying to hide it and that his father was an abusive drunk, and we hear that a woman was possibly an alcoholic. A man smokes a cigarette on a street corner, a man lights and smokes a cigarette in a yard, and a flashback shows a man holding a lighted cigarette.

The Tutor DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Tutoring as a living, privacy, secrets, obsession, dangers of working with minors, only children, alcoholism, mental illness, class differences, money, bribery, envy, power, rage, vengeance, emotional trauma, murder, loss, justice.

The Tutor MESSAGE

 – The promise of large sums of money can lead people into serious danger and mental illness can be deadly.