There are seeds of young adult novels wearing sophisticated sleeves and accompanying movie adaptations. Its main purpose is to show that refinement cannot save the suffering teenage soul. See “The Benefits of Being a Wall Flower”. In teenage romantic comedies, sophistication usually manifests itself in an almost endless stream of pop culture references.
Directed by Oran Zegman from the script by David A. Goodman, the “Honorary Society” emerges from the gate with a flash of formal and sophisticated subject matter. The relentlessly driven title character, Honor (as you may remember from Angourie Rice, “Nice Guys”, is terribly fascinating throughout) secretly denied working-class parents and her one. In towns and Harvard, we have created a persona with a ruthless focus on getting out of the head horse. Where “ordinary people get a big chance”, she tells the camera.
The “election” and “rushmore” notes here are strong. Among the fully adult viewers, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who gained the fame of “Macrovin” in “Superbad” (2007), is one of the four students she is actually competing for. It will feel old to see you play a coaching counselor (eventually Threzoid) that gives you an unpleasant surprise. His Harvard nomination.
This news motivates Honor to weave a superbly intertwined and growing manipulative web. One of her foils, Michael, is played by Gaten Matarazzo, a charming child of “Stranger Things.” Michael responds with a luscious stupidity to the movement of the seducer of honor. So, of course, he’s the one who breaks her cynical shell.
With a twist, the movie is taken to a dark place near Patricia Highsmith. But no murders happen, and the resolution of the movie confirms that one might have been skeptical: the tone of that dominant room is like “to all the boys I loved before” It is a thing.
Honor Society
Unrated. Execution time: 1 hour 37 minutes. See Paramount +.
