Maggie Gyllenhaal has described her new movie as a cautionary tale about what happens when you “starve a vibrant woman’s mind”.

The actress stars in The Kindergarten Teacher as a teacher who sees such great promise in her five-year-old student that she goes to unreasonable lengths to protect his talent.

Arriving at the movie’s premiere at the BFI London Film Festival, she said: “Having twisted ourselves into pretzels and bent over backwards to get the things we think we needed, it comes at a cost.

The Kindergarten Teacher screening – 62nd BFI London Film Festival
Maggie Gyllenhaal (David Parry/PA)

“There is consequence to it and our movie in a lot of ways is about the consequence of starving a vibrant woman’s mind.

“Ours is a wild rollercoaster, a cautionary tale, it is pretty extreme, but I think it’s a way of thinking about it.

“She does extreme and problematic things but you like her and relate to her and in a way it’s a way of thinking about how we are starving.”

The film was directed and written by Sara Colangelo, and Gyllenhaal said: “It was just really compelling to me, everything about it.

The Kindergarten Teacher screening – 62nd BFI London Film Festival
Sara Colangelo and Maggie Gyllenhaal (David Parry/PA)

“The script was remarkable and I think it’s really provocative and unusual.

“I think that you can be a woman and make a movie that isn’t fundamentally feminine so I am interested in what is fundamentally feminine and how do you get it on screen.

“I think Sara’s script clearly had this unusual femininity and it’s hard to really describe what that is.

“I think part of the way you can feel it in the movie is you can’t really put it inside of a genre.

“Is it a thriller, is it a horror movie, is it a French movie? It’s new and I think that has something to do with the fact it is a feminine expression.”

The Kindergarten Teacher will be released in UK cinemas in February 2019.