Bad Education (2019) - Review

God I hope this gets the Oscars it deserves. Ideally I’d want a best actor nomination for Hugh Jackman, supporting actress for Allison Janney, screenplay for Mike Makowsky. Perhaps even an editing nod for Louise Ford, a director nod for Cory Finley and I’d love a music nod for Michael Abels.

But I feel I’m getting ahead of myself. 

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As a Brit, I had no idea when I would get to see this film, following Cory Finley’s excellent directorial debut Thoroughbreds starring the late, great Anton Yelchin in a marvellous and fitting performance to end a career cut so brutally short.  So I was overjoyed when flicking through my Sky Cinema selections to find that Bad Education - Finley’s follow up following the single largest public school embezzlement scandal in American history - was there to view immediately. I was overjoyed, yet also naturally worried. Could it live up to the promise of Thoroughbreds or (pardon the pun) fall at the second hurdle? It is my great privilege to comment that I thought that Bad Education not only met the brilliance of his first film, but surpassed it. As odd a year for releases as it has been, I can firmly comment that Bad Education is my current favourite film of the year. And yes, I know that “the year” is an odd one for a British critic, due to American releases differing and all the like, but all the same I’d comment on it. I have a firm rule with new directors or actors or the like, where I like to give at least three films. In science, two is a coincidence, three is a pattern. Art is not science, but all the same I like to keep this principle. For instance I held my solidification of the talent of Damien Chazelle for First Man, rather than La La land and I was more than right to do so, with First Man being, for me, his undeniably best film. So I wait anxiously and hope desperately that Jordan Peele and Cory Finley’s third films solidify them for me as ones to confirm them as brilliant talents in the industry. But my eye is certainly on them tight in the mean time, and I will not withhold any praise until that point.

Bad Education is a real barn burner of a film. Wickedly funny, deeply affecting and generally worrisome to view in a time of such political unease and constant conspiracy as we are currently in. Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney star as the centre of a storm in New York’s Roslyn school district as what seem to be the two most trust-worthy, genuine and simply marvellous people you’ve ever met. More so, Jackman as Frank Tassone, the chief superintendant. Janney as Pam Gluckin offers us her regular harder outer shell that makes the character that little bit more intimidating than Jackman’s. Both offer brilliant performances ranging from the manic, to the blissfully calm, all the while imbued with a dark humour that rears its head at the most unpredictable of times. This is chiefly down to Makowsky’s note perfect script; so darkly funny, so unexpectedly touching that it takes us for a loop at almost every turn of the page, or frame of a scene. Makowsky was actually a middle-school student in the Roslyn school district during the events of the film, set in 2003. This wonderful script in the hands of the overtly talented Finley, delivered by powerhouses like Jackman and Janney - not to mention stellar supporting performances from Ray Romano, Annaleigh Ashford, Geraldine Viswanathan, Rafael Casal, Jeremy Shamos and Stephen Spinella - leads to an all-round stellar film that I look forward to eagerly viewing again and again over the years.

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In regards to influence, I kept being reminded of Alexander Payne’s Election, which nobody can help because of its similar setting in the school system and themes of large struggles in a relatively small world. But what I feel this film does better than Payne’s (one of my all time favourite films), is it’s move into the more emotional side of the characters. Whilst Election remains solely in the satiric and the darkly humorous, Bad Education moves into more human and devastating moments. Another film that I was reminded of often was All the President’s Men (another all-timer for me), with the marvellous extended scenes of journalistic investigation with Viswanathan. So brilliantly acted, edited, directed and written that much like All the President’s Men, the most mundane activities become unbearably thrilling and tense. It is this side of the story that leads it to have a flare for the tragic also, with the intermittent scenes shared by Jackman and Viswanathan, that showcase an actor we have known and loved for many years at the top of his game paired with a rising star who I’ll certainly be looking out for in the future. On a purely personal note, if your film is reminding me of two films firmly in my top 50 of all time, then you’re doing something right...at least for me.

The film builds its worth in its smallest moments. An image that will stay with me forever is a hard cut to a spilt coffee cup and Jackman’s slow realisation as he looks up from it. In Finley’s hands so little means so tremendously much. Even the set design in its smallest choices is perfect; the multiple background posters in memory of the 9/11 attacks puts us perfectly in the world of 2003, without a single patronising line of dialogue or awkward scene of our main characters viewing a newscast. The most important word in that past sentence was ‘patronising’, Bad Education doesn’t dream of underestimating its audience and it’s all the more thrilling, humorous and brilliant because of it.

A more than solid 9/10, with me keeping a close eye on the future work of all involved. The strongest of recommendations.

P.S. Fans of The Irishman can get ready for bingo as you spot scene after scene with actors from the Scorsese film. I believe the total is seven. A very fun game to play indeed.

-         -Thomas Carruthers