Bad Edu­ca­tion

In 2004, a huge scan­dal rocked a small, well-to-do school dis­trict in the Long Island area of New York. Beloved super­in­ten­dent Dr Fran­cis ​‘Frank’ Tas­sone was arrest­ed on embez­zle­ment charges, and was even­tu­al­ly con­vict­ed for steal­ing $2.2 mil­lion from the pub­lic school sys­tem he was trust­ed with over­see­ing. The mon­ey had been frit­tered away on vaca­tions, cos­met­ic pro­ce­dures, real estate, and – most scan­dalous of all – his dou­ble life with a male exot­ic dancer in Las Vegas.

It’s a stranger-than-fic­tion sto­ry with innate appeal – and who bet­ter to pen the Hol­ly­wood ver­sion than some­one close to the sub­ject? Screen­writer Mike Makowsky is a for­mer Roslyn stu­dent who remem­bers the scan­dal well, and his razor-sharp script, teamed with Cory Finley’s knack for depict­ing stark amoral­i­ty first glimpsed in 2018’s Thor­ough­breds, works won­ders for this wild tale of cor­rup­tion and greed, while Hugh Jack­man, play­ing the unscrupu­lous school­mas­ter, deliv­ers some of his finest work in years.

His Tas­sone is as slick and jovial as Jack­man him­self: he runs a book club pop­u­lar with all the local moth­ers; he drinks char­coal smooth­ies (in 2004!); he wears sharp suits; he dri­ves a nice car. His cologne is Hugo Boss, his hair is groomed to per­fec­tion – dyed an inky, box-fresh black. Frank Tas­sone takes pride in his appear­ance, metic­u­lous­ly craft­ed to give off a cer­tain image.

Thanks to his efforts on the school board, Roslyn has become a school dis­trict of nation­al note, with par­ents jostling for places and stu­dents mov­ing on to top Ivy League schools. As such, when scan­dal threat­ens to erupt, Tas­sone et al scram­ble to avoid a full-on PR night­mare, keen to pre­serve their hard-won reputation.

It’s a sto­ry about the lengths peo­ple will go to for self-preser­va­tion, deli­cious­ly mean and as fun­ny as it is out­ra­geous. Tas­sone rarely los­es his cool, approach­ing oncom­ing chaos with an unnat­ur­al calm­ness. It’s shock­ing – and cre­ates a sense of anx­i­ety in the audi­ence – to see some­one who is so utter­ly con­vinced of their own supe­ri­or­i­ty and clev­er­ness, that they don’t even have a con­tin­gency plan in case they get caught.

Fin­ley delights in show­ing sociopa­thy at its most banal; in Thor­ough­breds, it was blood­thirsty teenage girls, in Bad Edu­ca­tion, it’s greedy pub­lic school admin­is­tra­tors who insist their hard work for a thank­less job should come with greater resti­tu­tion. The scenes between Jack­man and Alli­son Jan­ney, who plays assis­tant super­in­ten­dent Pam Gluck­lin, are com­e­dy dyna­mite, while Ray Romano – fast becom­ing the king of sup­port­ing roles – is equal­ly delight­ful as real estate bro­ker ​“Big Bob Spicer”, togeth­er mak­ing for one of the best ensem­ble casts of the year.

Yet, as much as Frank Tas­sone is a vil­lain, Fin­ley invites us into his world and offers vital insight into how his mind works. One scene, set to Moby’s ​‘In This World’, is a beau­ti­ful­ly chore­o­graphed set piece which deliv­ers pos­si­bly Jackman’s most chal­leng­ing role to date: as a man who can­not dance. He would do well to learn from his Bad Edu­ca­tion expe­ri­ence and seek out more roles that offer him a chance to flex his dra­mat­ic skills, as beneath all the show­boat­ing, Jack­man is a very good actor, and it’s nice to be remind­ed of that every once in a while.