Even if you don’t give damn about your bad reputation, you should care about Bad Education, the latest film from Thoroughbreds director Cory Finley. The comedy-drama follows a student reporter for a Long Island high school, played by Blockers breakout Geraldine Viswanathan, who begins to detect that the district’s superintendent (Hugh Jackman) and assistant superintendent (Allison Janney) are up to no good. She’s right to be suspicious: they’re involved an embezzling scheme. Also, Jackman looks like this.
Never trust anyone who looks that sad when they’re smiling. Here’s the plot synopsis.
Long Island school superintendent Frank Tassone (Hugh Jackman) and his assistant superintendent for business, Pam Gluckin (Allison Janney), are credited with bringing Roslyn School District unprecedented prestige. Frank, always immaculately groomed and tailored, is a master of positive messaging, whether before an audience of community leaders or in an office with a concerned student or parent. In short, it seems Frank can do no wrong. That is, until a plucky student reporter (Geraldine Viswanathan) decides to dig deep into some expense reports and begins to uncover an embezzlement scheme of epic proportions, prompting Frank to devise an elaborate cover-up — by any means necessary.
Bad Education, which also stars Ray Romano, Alex Wolff, Kayli Carter, Annaleigh Ashford, and Rafael Casal, premieres on HBO on April 25.
