Movie Review: ‘Bad Genius’ Show Off the Pressures of Academia

Director: J.C. Lee
Writers: JC. Lee, Julius Onah
Stars: Benedict Wong, Callina Liang, Jabari Banks

Synopsis: A group of seniors of an entrepreneurial high school team up to take down a rigged college admissions system.

“What makes a good girl go bad?” is a question that’s now a cliché. J. C. Lee’s remake of the 2017 Thai film by Nattawut Poonpiriya gives a somewhat different answer to the one found in his teen cheating scandal turned heist movie. No matter how good Lynn Kang (Callina Liang) is, there is no such thing as a free ride even for full scholarship students at the elite Exton Pacific Academy. Lynn knows this as she’s done the math (in her head) and presented it to school principal Irene Walsh (Sarah-Jane Redmond). Lynn is okay with staying in public school especially if it means her dad Meng (Benedict Wong) doesn’t have to go further into debt on their already failing laundry business across town. Ms. Walsh makes Meng and Lynn an offer that’s hard to refuse – the scholarship and some financial relief. After all, Lynn represents what Exton is about – excellence.

What Ms. Walsh means is ‘quid pro quo’ – Lynn gets the scholarship and Exton can prove that it welcomes diversity. Ms. Walsh isn’t the first person who wants to take advantage of Lynn’s genius as she too quickly learns, but by the time she does she’s already a player in a game she’s rigged to lose.

Lynn is being brought up by her kindly single dad after the death of her mom due to factory related illness. All the hopes and dreams of a better life for Lynn are embodied by Meng. Lynn is the ‘first generation immigrant’ kid who doesn’t have time for anything beyond studying and hopefully helping Meng when he will allow her. Her best friend was her mom, and the only time she felt like she was doing something she loved and was for herself was when she was playing piano with her. Meng insists that Lynn will go on to be an MIT graduate. Secretly, Lynn wants to go to Julliard and study music. Either way it will cost more money than either of them have ever seen.

Money is no issue for most of the students at Exton. Lynn is quickly befriended by Grace (Taylor Hickson) who is barely keeping her grade average up enough to stay in her extra-curricular drama course. Grace seems sincere and self-aware enough to know that “pretty” is all she has going for her (and modest wealth compared to other Exton students). She ‘friend bombs’ Lynn, and before Lynn is even aware, she’s helping Grace cheat on her math tests. From there, it’s an introduction to Grace’s very wealthy boyfriend, Pat Stone (Samuel Braun) who lays out the land for her. If she helps him and some of his friends keep their grades up there is good money in it for her. At first, Grace demurs but after a function for students which is a barely disguised fundraiser and Meng is baited into buying $1000 worth of facial cream by Walsh and meeting Bank (Jabari Banks) who tells her that they’re just mascots. Bank is struggling financially too. His mother owns a small Nigerian diner in a less salubrious part of Seattle. She’s learned never to turn up to these ‘celebrations.’

Lynn is furious. She is smarter than her rich and, let’s face it, White classmates. Bank is the only person who comes close to rivalling her intelligence and it isn’t long before Walsh pits them against each other for a college scholarship. Meng is working two jobs, and all she sees around her are people who are at Exton because their parents are Seattle ‘royalty.’ If Exton is going to use her, then she will return the favor. Her tutoring group expands, and Lynn comes up with an ingenious way to signal the answers to mid-terms. It’s all going very well until one of the tests is given with two papers because the marks of some of the students have been unreasonably high considering their academic records. Lynn gets caught and her scholarship is rescinded, and her dad takes out a loan he can’t possibly repay.

The next part of the film revolves around an audacious plan to ‘steal’ the SAT scores. Cue the Ocean’s Eleven for teens as Lynn comes up with an ingenious way to get the test answers to her so-called friends in Seattle by going to Philadelphia. Bank, who had wanted nothing to do with the whole thing is pulled in as he was beaten by some ‘gang’ members outside his mom’s diner the night he was supposed to interview for the Cartwright scholarship.

Bad Genius is a fun mixture between low-stakes/high-stakes heists and a commentary on how easily privileged people use those they believe are desperate. Every promise made to Lynn is one which can be easily taken back by her flippant faux friends. It isn’t only her friends who make promises, but their parents too – they need to keep up their family reputation by having the scion end up at the alma mater regardless of talent or intelligence.

By using a non-linear narrative and quick edits, J.C. Lee’s film is rarely dull. It doesn’t come together as well as it should by the end of the film, stretching out a section where the nail biting “Will they get the questions to the undeserving” becomes a little more important than what will happen if Lynn and Bank get caught; two people without safety nets, and one who we find out later is a lot less safe than the audience presumed. However, Lynn is a genius after all, and she has done the math already.

Callina Liang is terrific as Mei-lin Kang – a young woman exhausted by the myriad of pressures on her. She adores her dad, and he adores her – but his focus on her success has meant he hasn’t stopped to see if she is actually happy. Benedict Wong is wonderful as Meng who finally sees how lost Lynn has become to herself and affirms what she has needed to hear – she only has to be his daughter and nothing else matters.

Bad Genius isn’t digging too deeply into the issues around how standardized testing puts many people at a disadvantage, especially people of color. Its audience is primarily teenagers who get just enough of an idea of how rigged the system is. Bad Genius has a protagonist to cheer on as the “good girl gone bad” being smart enough to become wise.

Grade: B-