Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney star in HBO's Bad Education.JoJo Whilden/HBO / Crave
- Bad Education
- Directed by Cory Finley
- Written by Mike Makowsky
- Starring Hugh Jackman, Allison Janney and Ray Romano
- Classification TV-MA; 103 minutes
I feel that we still haven’t seen the real Hugh Jackman. The Australian actor has built his career on two split personas – the raw, hirsute power of his grumpy superhero alter-ego Wolverine, and the slick song-and-dance man who’s shimmied his way across the big screen (Les Misérables, The Greatest Showman), the small screen (Viva Laughlin), and the stage (Oklahoma, the aw-jeez one-man tribute-to-himself Hugh Jackman in Concert, which made its way to Toronto a few years back).
Every now and then, Jackman dips into Serious Acting exercises, but seems so visibly uncomfortable placing himself in such situations that he feels a microsecond from jumping out of his own skin, when he should instead be sinking into someone else’s (see The Fountain, Prisoners, The Front Runner). Maybe it’s the parlour-trick thriller The Prestige which contains Jackman’s best performance, as director Christopher Nolan helps the actor steady himself in a story both serious and silly, in the process melding both sides of the man into one single ornery huckster.
Or perhaps it’s the new film Bad Education, where the real Jackman stands up. Director Cory Finley’s dark comedy is old-fashioned in its conception – it’s based on a true story involving embezzlement among high-school educators on Long Island in the early aughts – and execution. There is no attempt at stretching the form like Jackman’s previous Serious Film collaborators, Nolan or Denis Villeneuve or Darren Aronofsky, and its stakes feel refreshingly small. Instead, Finley – who tones things down considerably from his highly stylized debut, the 2017 killer-teen comedy Thoroughbreds – walks his audience through a peculiar case of suburban greed, and drills down on character and performance.
Jackman leads Finley’s cast of overly ambitious middle managers as Frank Tassone, the superintendent of Long Island’s Roslyn school district who stole millions from the system, all while trying to outrun a few other secrets and lies, too. An education guru who projects supreme confidence on the outside, but can feel his stomach tighten with every false move (of which there are many), Tassone is the kind of slippery character who requires a performer with star power, charisma and a drive to impress, but also a shadow – a shade of shadow, even – of doubt as to whether any of this feels exactly right. Jackman, clearly delighted to be part of the proceedings, nails it. I don’t know how close his Tassone is to the real Tassone, and I don’t much care. Jackman creates a schemer who hoodwinks you into thinking he’s a saint – or a saint who convinces himself he’s a much better schemer. It’s a nervy, captivating double-act.
The cast around Jackman is rich with smart choices, such as Ray Romano as a school board higher-up.HBO / Crave
Finley graciously surrounds Jackman with a host of other gifted, sometimes similarly misused or overlooked talents, including Allison Janney as a fellow school administrator, whose sloppiness while on the take sets the whole scam unravelling, and a delightfully anxious Ray Romano (yes, Ray Romano!) as the school board higher-up, who must decide whether one scandal is worth tarnishing an entire education system. Even a bit role, such as the one filled by Sopranos comic-relief vet Ray Abruzzo, feels like a finely engineered casting coup.
Crucially, Finley gives everyone space to breathe, and never lets the sometimes outrageous antics of Tassone and company overwhelm the character beats, nor does he insincerely pump up the story to undeservedly zany heights, as might be the temptation with such a tabloid-ready tale. (There is also a neatly handled subplot about the investigative prowess of an overeager high-school journalist; a sure-fire way to get any newspaper writer on board.)
Normally, this is the part of the review I’d reserve to bemoan the fact that the film – which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this past September before being acquired by HBO – was going to be seen strictly on cable television and not in theatres, where Jackman’s loyal audience could savour one of his finest turns. But since absolutely nothing is making its way to the theatre right now, the cable deal is an accidental act of good timing. And a well-deserved opportunity to soak in, on repeat, the real Hugh Jackman.
Bad Education premieres April 25 at 8 p.m. on HBO/Crave
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