Bad Education (Cory Finley, 2020)

[DarkImbecile]

As the OG Thoroughbreds fan on the board, I was particularly excited for Cory Finley's follow-up, Bad Education, when it was hitting the festival circuit last year, but for some reason [gestures at global chaos] it took me awhile to finally watch it once it became available on HBO/HBO Max a few months ago. Having quite enjoyed the stylistic showiness on display in Finley's debut, I was at first a little disappointed with the more straightforward, no-nonsense unspooling of a "based on a true story" drama, but by the end I was quite enamored with the subtly incisive social criticism and careful character work on display here.

If you don't know the real story behind the film, I'd advise against reading up on it beforehand, as Finley's direction and Mike Makowsky's script are careful in doling out the scope of what's happening and the extent to which the key characters are involved. The filmmakers admirably avoid easy condemnations of corruption and two-dimensional villainy in favor of something far more interesting: a portrait of the varieties of self-delusion that are endemic among the staff, elected officials, and parents in this school district, and which seem pointedly relevant to everyday life in this country as a whole. In particular, the goals of this school board and community are rooted in upper class absurdities necessitating the lie that they've all agreed to work toward, which enables the rot eating away at the foundation under that artifice.

It's also another very strong performance from Hugh Jackman, who between his work here and in Jason Reitman's 2018 The Front Runner has thoroughly occupied a niche consisting of outwardly strong, charismatic leaders whose Achilles' heels are a failure to grasp something about themselves and/or the world they inhabit.

While it's ultimately not as strong and instantly striking as its predecessor, it is a promising indication of the breadth of Finley's talent that he's able to elevate what could have been Jay-Roach-level "can you believe these bastards?" material to something more quiet, considered, and memorable. I see that a few others have listed it highly over in the Dynamic Consensus Lists, and I'd love to hear more about what they appreciated.

[Toland's Mitchell]

As the OG Thoroughbreds fan on the board, I was particularly excited for Cory Finley's follow-up, Bad Education, when it was hitting the festival circuit last year, but for some reason [gestures at global chaos] it took me awhile to finally watch it once it became available on HBO/HBO Max a few months ago. Having quite enjoyed the stylistic showiness on display in Finley's debut, I was at first a little disappointed with the more straightforward, no-nonsense unspooling of a "based on a true story" drama, but by the end I was quite enamored with the subtly incisive social criticism and careful character work on display here.

If you don't know the real story behind the film, I'd advise against reading up on it beforehand, as Finley's direction and Mike Makowsky's script are careful in doling out the scope of what's happening and the extent to which the key characters are involved. The filmmakers admirably avoid easy condemnations of corruption and two-dimensional villainy in favor of something far more interesting: a portrait of the varieties of self-delusion that are endemic among the staff, elected officials, and parents in this school district, and which seem pointedly relevant to everyday life in this country as a whole. In particular, the goals of this school board and community are rooted in upper class absurdities necessitating the lie that they've all agreed to work toward, which enables the rot eating away at the foundation under that artifice.

It's also another very strong performance from Hugh Jackman, who between his work here and in Jason Reitman's 2018 The Front Runner has thoroughly occupied a niche consisting of outwardly strong, charismatic leaders whose Achilles' heels are a failure to grasp something about themselves and/or the world they inhabit.

While it's ultimately not as strong and instantly striking as its predecessor, it is a promising indication of the breadth of Finley's talent that he's able to elevate what could have been Jay-Roach-level "can you believe these bastards?" material to something more quiet, considered, and memorable. I see that a few others have listed it highly over in the Dynamic Consensus Lists, and I'd love to hear more about what they appreciated.

As a big Thoroughbreds fan, I marked my calendar on April 25th of this year to watch Bad Education the day it premiered on HBO NOW (now HBO MAX). What I appreciated about Bad Education was how it manipulated our impression of Hugh Jackman's character between the first and second half of the film.

SpoilerShow

As you said, it helped not knowing the real-life story beforehand. In the first half, we're led to believe Allison Janney's character was the sole culprit, and Jackman was condemning her. However, as we learned in the second half, he wasn't really condemning her for her crimes...he was actually condemning the fact she was caught, which threatened to reveal the entire scheme that he was just as much (if not more) a participant in. It made a re-watch more interesting, reading between the lines as Jackman was subtly/politely trying to save his own skin.

You summed up everything else very well. I agree it doesn't pack the punch of Thoroughbreds, but they're fundamentally different films and the former was hard to top. Nevertheless, Bad Education was a solid sophomore film from Cory Finley, and I'll look forward to what he does next.

[therewillbeblus]

If you don't know the real story behind the film, I'd advise against reading up on it beforehand, as Finley's direction and Mike Makowsky's script are careful in doling out the scope of what's happening and the extent to which the key characters are involved. The filmmakers admirably avoid easy condemnations of corruption and two-dimensional villainy in favor of something far more interesting: a portrait of the varieties of self-delusion that are endemic among the staff, elected officials, and parents in this school district, and which seem pointedly relevant to everyday life in this country as a whole. In particular, the goals of this school board and community are rooted in upper class absurdities necessitating the lie that they've all agreed to work toward, which enables the rot eating away at the foundation under that artifice.

I largely agree with your reading of the film's strengths, and Finley plays a neat psychological trick by keeping the audience in tow with Jackman's own self-awareness so that as we become acclimated to more objective truths, we can't ignore our own micro-focused observations that force a more complex reading of character than binary moral categorization. In a sense, he's repurposing a similar principle skill from Thoroughbreds in reverse.

In that film, Finley developed a character with antisocial personality disorder (a commonly alienated group, often labeled as predisposed societal cancers due to innate emotional voids) from the ground up, bearing her eccentric red flags from the very start, and then allowed us to acclimate to her foreign humanity to the point where we empathize with her over the actual emotionally-capable girl because one chooses an immoral path vs. the other's consistency leading to a logical sacrifice (which is moral, despite not rooted in the familiar motivator of 'compassion'). Selfishness winds up becoming revealed to be the greater threat, a disease that is learned from one's social context rather than inherently problematic in behavioral symptomology.

Bad Education, on the other hand, provides us with an inverted path to get to a similar place. Jackman is a likable man with many shades to him, capable of empathy and his emotional validation is generous in how he thinks of other people and their goals in life from the start. Only over time do our eyes open up to what's going on, and while similar to his last film in effect, this is done by levying evidence to question his moral core following a complex characterization, whittling down our attention instead of expanding it. I don't mean to suggest that Finley is being manipulatively provocative or invalidating Jackman's worth, and both processes result in a comprehensive experience. However, simply by telling the story this way, information is planted that transparently moves towards a socially-normative binary-"bad" space vs. a "good" one regarding the central character's dignity from an ideological lens of judgment.

Since Finley is so aware of our problematic system of assessing (and often assassinating) other people, each film holds a mirror up to our own pre-conceived expectations and understandings of the relationship between ethics and habitual privileges; including, and especially, the drug of entitlement that may drive a wedge far deeper than we'd like to admit, and disinhibit us from our moral compasses much like alcohol, without the visible mess.

Unfortunately, as interesting and commendable as Finley and Makowsky's approach to the material was, I didn't particularly 'like' the movie at a steady rate throughout my viewing. Jackman's performance of rationalization is excellent, and there are remnants of the dark humor that populated Thoroughbreds (my favorite being the ambush on Janney) but it didn't add up to a cohesively memorable piece of work. Still, I wouldn't call the film a failure- it's surely a success on its terms of engagement- and just because I wasn't roused by the totality of its execution while watching doesn't mean it isn't impressive or stimulating on a constructionist level.

The best moment in the film is Jackman's late-act assertion of his actual beliefs, transcending the role of 'service provider' to expose his authentic self for likely the first time in his life in a public way. His speech may not grant him catharsis but it's the best argument for this rationalization in the whole movie concentrated into one action following a trajectory of verbal air. The empathy we feel for our teachers and other participants victimized by a paradoxical system in that instant demands a complex reading, even to those who also oppress within such institutions. This saves the movie, and propels it from what could be a an 'okay-but-smart' delivery of goods into a clearly-designed reinstatement of humanism, reflecting the a one-way track to absurdist system-exploitation and dissolve of characterization after a strong first act as an intentional dip, necessary to earn its fireworks of mature composition.

[DarkImbecile]

This just won an Emmy for Outstanding Television Movie