What’s It About
A brilliant scholarship student devises an ingenious cheating scheme to help her friends ace their exams. As their underground operation expands, she soon finds herself at the center of a high-stakes game that tests her morals and pits her against the American education system.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
“Bad Genius” recounts the life of Lynn, a highly intellectually smart high school kid played by Callina Liang. She is the daughter of an immigrant from China running a poor laundromat. Despite financial difficulties, Lynn’s excellence academically earned her a full scholarship to a prep elite school in Seattle. This opportunity is extended partly because the school wants to diversify its student body, which predominantly consists of children from rich backgrounds. Lynn soon finds herself befriending Grace, played by Taylor Hickson, a spoiled-rotten rich girl who asks her to help her cheat on exams. Reluctant at first, Lynn yields and feels this is the perfect opportunity to make some much-needed friends to fit in. Soon enough, Grace’s boyfriend Pat (Samuel Braun) realizes they can make a profit by helping other rich students cheat. Lynn devises a very smart scheme using piano-based hand movements to describe the test answers. Lynn chooses to stay a cheat due to the many influences going around her life. Her father’s chronic financial difficulties bother her immensely, even though he would never approve of her methods. Though her dad wants her to go to MIT, she wants to go to Julliard; all this does is put her in a better position to pay for college. The money comes from rich students that can well afford her services, a way she manages to justify the actions. Beyond the financial benefits, Lynn finds herself drawn to the excitement and intellectual challenge of outsmarting the system. The scheme multiplies as Lynn enlists Bank, another scholarship student from Nigeria, to help her. However, as in the case of most illegal activities, Lynn’s malpractices catch up with her. Pushed by the prospect of being caught, she must make an important decision: return to an honest academic life or perfect ways of cheating and face her accuser. The movie tugs at deep questions of education and inequality. It dissects the sharp division between rich and poor students in elite education, pointing out how often the system gives preference to having money over talent. Lynn’s story underlines the complicities of taking dubious means to make a playing field fair. It takes a darker turn into the pressure to succeed in high-stakes academic settings and the price for attempting to belong in high-end social circles. Questions of loyalty and friendship interplay within the narrative as layered emotional framings of the ethical dilemmas. Filmically, the characters are archetypes, but they were elevated by strong performances. Callina Liang plays Lynn as a really complex protagonist; her brilliant mind takes her down some very questionable paths in morality. Through Liang’s subtle portrayal, audiences can understand-even sympathize with-Lynn’s choices. Benedict Wong is stellar as Lynn’s father, Meng Kang, who weighs his shoulders with all the burdens an immigrant parent usually does for the secured future of his child. Jabri Banks plays Bank as a sort of moral center of the story, though ultimately, even his character falls to temptation. Grace and Pat, while fitting comfortably into familiar stereotypes of rich students, function well enough as catalysts for Lynn’s eventual fall into academic deceit. Classic heist movie tropes build tension and excitement within the movie. The film narrates, through quick montage after montage, the elaboration and the execution of Lynn’s sophisticated cheating schemes. Sharp cuts keep the suspense going, while detailed explanations of the systems satiate viewer curiosity as to how everything works. The audience is given their dose of engagement through dramatic interrogation scenes and unexpected plot twists, even considering the relatively low stakes when set against traditional heist films. Of course, there are pitfalls in this film: stereotype portrayals of characters and some repetitive scenes. Sometimes, plot development can be a bit heavy-handed; further, supporting characters do not get enough mileage in terms of growth. However, these weaknesses are outweighed by the successes. There are genuinely tense moments in this film and some meaningful stakes that it sets up to keep audiences invested. Performances, especially from Liang and Wong, elevate this material beyond some of its formulaic tendencies. Most importantly, the film builds up to a memorable and satisfying conclusion. Blending elements of heist movies, teen drama, and social commentary into one, “Bad Genius” resists easy categorization, though it works both as entertainment and as thoughtful commentary. It’s really raising interesting questions about morality and success without ever losing some thrills that keep the viewer engaged. Stereotype and plot device are occasionally relied on, but these are balanced by such a strong performance and intelligent storytelling that this makes for a worthwhile watch, not in the least because of its powerful ending, really tying all threads of the story together.
OUR RATING – AN EINSTEIN WORTHY 7