Bad Education

Long Island school superintendent Frank Tassone (Hugh Jackman) and his assistant superintendent for business, Pam Gluckin (Academy Award winner 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, also at the Festival in Hala) 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.

Inspired by a true story, Bad Education is a smartly assembled, darkly hilarious, at times squirm-inducing chronicle of the most astonishing financial crime in the history of the US school system. Directed by Cory Finley (Thoroughbreds) from a script by Mike Makowsky, who was a student in the Roslyn School District when the scandal became public in the mid-'00s, the film is a master class in duplicity, with the charismatic Frank taking extreme measures to not only shield himself and his colleagues from the law, but also to keep his carefully constructed façade from crumbling to pieces.

The breadth of Tassone's deceptions and double life were startling, and Bad Education is similarly complex in its scope. Every new twist requires nuance to convey, and Jackman and Janney are the perfect pair to carry off their characters' journey of camaraderie, conspiracy, and betrayal.

MICHAEL LERMAN