BAD GENIUS Review: How to Win Fake Friends and Influence Wrong People
Since we live in a time when every single film ever produced should be remade at least once, it’s fair to expect a new reimagining of some intellectual property come out every other few week or so.
Some of those, like the recent English-language version of Speak No Evil, manage not only to capitalize on the already existing qualities of the original, but to also expand on them and possibly introduce something novel. Right now, it’s time for a new take on Bad Genius (Chalard games goeng) – a memorable Thai hit from 2017 about a brilliant highschooler who helps her well-off classmates cheat during exams.
The 2024 film, shot in English and transferring the setting to Seattle, is penned by J.C. Lee (for whom it’s a feature directorial debut). And yes, it is one of these remakes that manage to tweak the already existing concept.
The highschooler in question is Lynn (Callina Liang), who is accepted to a high-brow private school on a scholarship much to the delight of her hardworking immigrant father (Benedict Wong) who has sacrificed a lot to provide a good life for his only child. She is quickly taken under the wing of Grace (Taylor Hickson) who charms her way into Lynn’s heart by sharing her acting career aspirations and throwing blowjob comebacks at some clueless classmates.
Grace is not a fan of math, so Lynn impulsively steps in during a test and sneaks the right answers to her. After Grace introduces her new friend to her byfriend Pat (Samuel Braun) who experiences similar academic struggles, it’s only a matter of time before Lynn is tempted to earn some easy money by helping rich kids cheat on a regular. On the fringes of this plot there is also Bank (Jabari Banks) – another bright scholarship student who doesn’t want any part in this game but gets sucked right in.
Lynn’s dynamic with Bank is what’s most noticeably changed in the first part of the film in comparison to Baz Poonpiriya’s version. Thus, the obvious focus of the original on ethics and morality shifts to a much more socially conscious narrative.
Class divide was evident in the first movie too, but in the screenplay penned by Lee and Julius Onah, it actually drives the whole story, making it even more poignant and dictating the drastic changes in how the ending will play out. Sure, there is still a bunch of good old lessons, like this familiar Nietzschean classic: if you try for long to hack the system, the system hacks you right back. At the same time, the new Bad Genius is injected with a healthy dose of ambiguousness, ideas about the necessity of owning your moral compromises and questions about whether it’s a wiser to fight the system or fight for a good spot within it.
All these musings aside, Bad Genius is just as entertaining as its predecessor was. While it might be labeled as a teen thriller, it’s shot primarily as a heist movie.
The process of answers being passed around by way of utilizing shoes, erasers and secret codes is showcased with gusto in terms of Lee's direction, Brett Jutkiewicz’ camerawork and Franklin Peterson’s editing. There are definitely some clumsy bits throughout the film too. The ending, satisfying as it is, feels rushed, and one wonderfully tense sequence turns unexpectedly comical when too many things go wrong at once culminating in a printer going out of comission as a cherry on the already overstuffed sandae.
None of these moments take away from the movie that just keeps delivering exactly what it promised, though. After all, it even manages to make an exciting viewing experience out of not one, but several episodes of characters inside toilet stalls.
The film is now playing in select U.S. theaters and is also available via various Video On Demand platforms via Vertical Entertainment.
