MOVIE PREMIERE: This fall on Broadway – if there
is a this fall on Broadway – Hugh Jackman is scheduled to play traveling con man Harold Hill in a new revival of
The Music Man, opposite Sutton Foster as Marian the librarian. (According to Jackman as of last week, plans are for the musical to still launch as scheduled in September. But I doubt it. Especially since I have tickets.) Meanwhile, Jackman stars in this new HBO movie in a very similar type of role – con man extraordinaire – but this one has its roots in reality. Jackman and Allison Janney play school officials in Rosyln, NY in 2004, when the school was ranked as one of the Top 10 in America, with a quarter of its students earning admission to highly selective colleges. The way
Bad Education plays out is very clever, with its secrets and intrigues unveiled slowly, eventually leading to one of the biggest financial scandals in high school academics. Jackman is excellent here: forceful, powerful, proud as a peacock, and preening like one, too. And his co-star, Janney, once again creates a supporting character so vivid and dynamic (remember her as Tonya Harding’s mom in
I, Tonya?), you can’t wait for her to reappear. And Ray Romano, in another supporting role, is excellent as well. Some of the accounts here, especially regarding the high-school newspaper investigation, are stretched, but Robert Kolker’s
New York magazine story is adapted here, for the most part, with the basic facts intact.
Bad Education is good entertainment – simple as that.
For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.