Premise: A high school overachiever schemes her way to the top of the class by creating distractions for the other best students.
My name is Alex and I have to admit something. I hope it doesn't affect my 'film nerd' credentials. My shameful secret is: I like nice movies. Don't get me wrong, I still love a dark arthouse film where someone is getting over an addition or a child dies in a horrible accident. I enjoy movies that are craft spectacles where you barely even need to have actors. But dammit, I really like nice movies too. I've noticed it's gotten cool to roll your eyes at "nicecore" like Parks & Red or Ted Lasso. I think that's dumb. People don't need to be awful to be interesting.
I watched Honor Society mainly because I've liked Angourie Rice since The Nice Guys and I'm a sucker for a teen comedy. The movie starts in typical high school comedy ways. Rice breaks the fourth wall to speak directly to the audience about her plan. She starts off as an almost robotic overachiever. She sets up a complex scheme and introduces us to a bunch of high school archetype characters. It's obvious the movie was going to be about her seeing the error of her ways and getting an awakening to what's really important. I was pleasantly surprised though with the path the movie opted to take.
It turns out, Honor (Rice) is a nice person and people discovered that. That's how everything plays out for the most part. I was ready for a moment when her scheming gets discovered and she has to do something to get everyone's forgiveness. Instead, she accidentally improves a lot of lives and makes some good friends. Even the cool girl friends she has kept turn out to be awesome. They don't turn on her when she falls for a geek or move to another queen bee. It turns out they are just super helpful and nice.
Weirdly this all reminded me of the high school reunion episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. All this time we thought Dennis was cool in high school. It turns out, he just thought he was better than everyone else and they felt sorry for him. Or maybe the better example is Thomas Mann in Me & Earl & the Dying Girl. Mann prides himself on how much he's mastered high school from an outsider's perspective, but it becomes increasingly obvious throughout the movie that everyone knows what he's up to and kind of humor him because he's nice and harmless. That's Honor, pretty much. Few people realize she's scheming. To them, she's just being nice, and she's the last one to realize that. It's a unique take for a high school movie.
Obviously, the major exception to this is Gaten Matarazzo's character. I did guess that he was probably playing her pretty early because, well, I've seen a movie before. I was a little disappointed that the movie opted to make him an outright villain rather than a true compliment to Honor. The movie doesn't actually need him to be awful in the end. There could've been a fun "Gone Girl but nice" resolution to this where no one had to be the villain. Well, except for the creepy guidance counselor, I guess. As is, what they opted to do works fine too.
The point is, I really liked this movie. It's smart and sweet and made me feel good. I like when a movie can do that in a way that feels earned.
Verdict: Strongly Recommend
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