29/10
SEPTA operates in the Philadelphia metropolitan area
Tale
A group of high school graduates from an entrepreneurial high school band together to overthrow a rigged college admissions system. A remake of the Thai film Bad Genius (2017). The film opens with a scene showing Lynn calculating the cost of a trip to a private school she visited. The film shows a stack of public transportation tickets clearly marked with the SEPTA logo, which stands for Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.
Lynn (Callina Liang) is a brilliant student with no family money
Half a minute later, the film identifies the city Lynn and her dad live in as Seattle. References Roots (1977). Her widowed father Meng (Benedict Wong) works tirelessly at his laundromat. She wins a scholarship to a prestigious high school in Seattle.
They recruit her to pass on their answers
She befriends a rich girl, Grace (Taylor Hickson), who slowly draws her into the rich kids’ world. Bank (Jabari Banks) is the other smart scholarship student in their class. Apparently, this is an adaptation of a Thai film that I haven’t seen. All I know is that this film needs to change Lynn.
The first thirty minutes are very standard and quite boring
I get the idea of a poor innocent Chinese girl being lured into doing evil by a bunch of rich white kids. It would be more fun if she started the film by working on some scheme to make money. I would even accept a narrative where she reads the people around her. She needs to be emotionally intelligent like she is later in the film.
It’s completely uninspired
It takes a long time to get into anything interesting. Sometimes I thought Banks should be the main character, but it should really be Lynn… with a change.