Premiered Saturday on HBO, though I wouldn't categorize it as your typical HBO movie, as it sparked a bidding war after premiering at the Toronto Film Festival this past fall, with theatrical studios throwing their hats in the ring, but the filmmakers ultimately ended up going with HBO's offer. In other words, this is a theater-caliber indie that just so happens to be premiering on TV. Though, I do find HBO's marketing a bit odd, as the movie itself is considerably more somber than the trailer below lets on. It's certainly not a comedy, nor does it quite match the trailer's energy. That said, it's an interesting story based on a true events, with two great performances from Jackman and Allison Janney. I could have used another 10 minutes or so to flesh out the characters/situation just a bit more, but overall it's a solid effort and totally worth your time if you're looking for something to watch while stuck at home...

Good article on how faithful the movie is to the actual story. The writer of the movie actually attended the high school featured in the movie, shortly after the real life events...

https://slate.com/culture/2020/04/bad-education-accuracy-fact-fiction-hbo-movie-roslyn.html

Watched it last night. Kept my attention. I'm surprised the school would let students print that kind of article in the school newspaper (assuming they had a teacher overseeing their journalism dept).

I watched this last night.

There are two or three plot twists that added to my enjoyment of the story. It was well-acted and well-written. Not great, but definitely watchable.

SPOILERS: This is probably an obvious thing to say, but the excellent article cited above by TCTTS has numerous spoilers that reveal the plot twists that were part of my enjoyment of the movie.

I doubt anyone would read that article before watching the movie, but yeah, I guess the spoiler tag doesn't hurt.

Yes, I don't mean to dump on you.

I had read an article about the events depicted and wanted to see this. Even with all the spoilers laid out I enjoyed it. As the OP says, it was very well acted and made for the big screen. Hugh Jackman has never been a favorite of mine but I was thoroughly impressed by his performance.

What were the feds looking for in the school ceiling tiles?

Odd to show that. They weren't maintenance men. They were wearing ties. I liked it. The cast was perfect. I wish there was more about the damage done to the district and town. And for Tassone to still get a $174k pension payment per year is the 357th example of what's wrong with NY's financial problems.

Were they wearing ties? Maybe I'm wrong. I'll have to look again if I see it on.

Maybe it's people from the district/school board.

It was towards the end. A janitor was standing against the lockers. I read the write up TCTTS posted and it said several folks we're stealing money.

On an anecdotal note, several years ago, one of my brother's classmates worked for our ISD in maintenance. Got busted for taking ISD lawnmowers to local pawn shops. I think it was swept under the rug and nothing serious happened to him except getting fired and probably restitution.

Side note: I find it interesting how quickly actors can change their bodies. Jackman looks so skinny in this role. Hard to believe that's Wolverine.

I thought it was pretty obvious that it was just the administrators finally getting around to doing the job that had been explicitly mentioned by the girl earlier in the movie.

It was a contrast to previous administrators using funds for their own good to now having to do work themselves that SHOULD be contracted out.

I think it was 2014, a hail storm badly damaged our high school's roof. During our 2016 bond election, I started poking around in the ISD's audits. They had received over a million in insurance for the roof. Then a friend whose ex worked for the district laughed at me when I said the roof was fixed. Low and behold roofers we're at the high school the summer after the $150 million bond passed. I'll never know what they spent the insurance money on.

Watched this over the weekend. Kept my attention, but thought it was just okay overall. Not sure why they had Jimmy Tatro in that role, when it literally could've been played by any random young dude.

Silky Johnston said:

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That's because they have easy access to steroids and other illegal and barely legal substances.

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has there been a thread on roids and whatnot with these actors/movies? if not, there should be.

This was a great movie.

I thought it was an enjoyable movie with an interesting story and good performances from dependable actors. My one minor gripe is that they had to change the story to make 'journalism' the hero. Not sure that's any more interesting than the truth which is that stupidity, greed, vanity, carelessness and an anonymous letter brought down the corruption.

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a32268352/bad-education-hbo-true-story-frank-tassone-now/