High school can be the best time of one’s young life. You can embrace all the school has to offer or you can crumble under its many pressures. As the years go on, the pressure society puts on high school students is getting more and more unbearable. The stress of sometimes unachievable school standards, intense college prep, and the ugliness of the outside world seeping in, has infected the way kids spend their final four years of youth. Based on the award winning 2017 Thai film, Chalard games goeng, J.C. Lee’s Bad Genius tells the gripping tale of one brilliant student who designs an intricate cheating scheme to help assure her friends ace their college entrance exams. As their underground cheating ring expands, the film becomes both morality play and a sharp critique of the American education system.

Written by Lee and Julius Onah, Bad Genius traverses the blurred lines between right and wrong. This is a story where the system fails the youth they pledged to care for and the students resort to whatever means necessary to pass their college entrance exams. What begins as a cheating scheme, snowballs into a full-fledged conspiracy with the edginess of a heist film. Two wrongs never make a right, but the screenplay finds sympathy for the characters in their desperation and the unbelievable stress they must endure day to day. The filmmakers guard against making an excuse for their crimes, but they make the case that even the best of us have a breaking point. 

A wonderfully natural Callina Liang is Lynn Kang, a brilliant high school student who receives a scholarship to a prestigious private high school run by big money donors. While her future is bright, she lives with her widowed father (Benedict Wong), helping him run the family laundromat. In a school filled with the offspring of the rich and privileged, Lynn certainly stands out.

In a moment where the audience experiences the condescending tone and body language of the school’s principal, it is obvious that Lynn is there to fill a quota; something she and her dad are slow to realize. The scene is one of the best in the film, as Lynn’s father is forced to be humble as the admin smiles, utterly pleased with herself and knowing she holds all the cards. The moment exists as a sharply focused dig at the inequalities found in the class system forged by a corrupt educational system. 

Lynn meets fellow schoolmate, Grace (Taylor Hawkins) and the two become friends. Almost immediately, Grace asks Lynn to tutor her in math. So begins the pride before the fall. As Lynn realizes her worth to these rich kids, her motivations become more monetary. Having next-to-no social skills, the math prodigy is proud of how smart she is and, being the child of immigrants, to be on track to become the first in her family to attend college. Lynn loves music and hopes to get into Juilliard; a big goal. As their finances limit where she can go, Lynn must rely on scholarships and tries hard to prepare for her audition. Wanting her father to also share in any spoils that may come from her “tutoring” of her fellow classmates, Lynn falls in with Grace and her friends, not caring about the socio-economic inequalities between them. She feels good, until it becomes clear that she is being used by this crowd just as much as the school is using her presence. 

Things get real, as Lynn basically turns her cheating scams into big business, where the students pay big bucks for her cheating methods. Even Grace’s opportunistic boyfriend, Pat (Samuel Braun) has parents who offer up an apartment in New York as long as Lynn can get their son into a good school. Lynn accepts (as she does with every student willing to pay) and her hands are officially dirty. There is no turning back, nor does it seem she wants to. As the money and perks pile up, so do the problems and pressure that threatens to boil over into legal issues. 

The plot thickens in the form of another cash poor student who exists only for the school to look charitable. Bank (Jabari Banks), is a nice kid, but he and Lynn are pitted against one another to fight for a scholarship. The two get along, but future events will test the patience of the kind Bank and threaten the future of Lynn and every student who paid for her help. 

Lee and Onah’s savvy screenplay is as energetic as the filmmaking. The relationships between the characters are well-designed and the creation and execution of the massive cheating scam makes Bad Genius as engrossing as the tightest of thrillers. While filled with plenty of tense moments, this is a smart film, as it engages the cerebral and the visceral. We watch helplessly as Grace’s ever-so-sly seduction and ultimate blackmail of Lynn colors the latter’s attitude towards what she has done. The class structure is broken down in their relationship (Grace believes herself superior to the “scholarship girl”) until it is turned on its head once Lynn takes charge and becomes the one who uses everybody else to get what she wants.

In every character (especially Lynn and Bank) there is a loss of innocence and a corruption of the soul. The ones guarded by family wealth may never see past their golden gates (nor will they own the severity of their actions), while the penetrating class distinctions will exist as the barrier that will separate them all. 

The culture of money, positions of power and white privilege has never been more prominent. With a little power (be it in the school system, the corporate world, or any place where money rules) one can twist and bend the rules for their own personal gain. To see young people fall victim to or, rather, choose to let themselves be a part of this type of corruption is heartbreaking. The emotional power of Lynn’s arc is the spark that gives the picture its fire. Director Lee presents the story with a sly wit and a smart focus. Everyone involved in this scandal (including some of the parents, who became complicit) are too self-involved to see the impact of their crimes. With the exception of Lynn, who regains the good within her, any remorse lies in the fact that they were caught. 

It is cases such as this one that are representative of the greed that cripples this country’s educational institutions from the administrations to the students. The dangerous truth lies in America’s school system ignoring its most important duty, our children’s education.

Witty and exciting, this is a work that gets to the heart of modern teens who are up against a system that seems to be stacked against them. Bad Genius is a seriously entertaining film that doesn’t take its subject lightly. This one has something to say.

Bad Genius

Written by J.C. Lee & Julius Onah

Directed by J.C. Lee

Starring Callina Liang, Benedict Wong, Taylor Hawkins, Samuel Braun, Jabari Banks

NR, 96 Minutes, Little Ray Media, Picturestart, Picture Perfect Federation, Vertical