Israeli director Nadav Lapid uses a well-worn concept — a lonely little boy is taken under a teacher’s wing — to create a slow, creepy movie.

Nira (Sarit Larry) hears Yoav (round-faced, sad-eyed Avi Shnaidman) reeling off a poem in the schoolyard, and becomes obsessed with the boy’s talent, even passing off his poems as her own. Lapid fills his movie with pans, close-ups and startling moments where characters look straight into the camera’s lens.

Larry offers a subtle portrait of a woman who’s ordinary on the surface, but decidedly abnormal underneath. The concept would work better if Yoav’s poems soared, but they’re merely pleasant. The movie eventually reveals itself as a wispy, good-looking riff on “Amadeus,” with poor Yoav standing in for Mozart, while Nira never becomes as mordantly fascinating as the composer’s rival Salieri.