Bad Education (2019 film)

In 2002, Dr. Frank Tassone is the superintendent of Roslyn School District in Long Island, which oversees Roslyn High School. Frank, along with his assistant superintendent Pam Gluckin, have overseen major improvements in the district, with Roslyn becoming the 4th ranked public school in the country under their watch. The school's performance in turn stimulates the local economy, reaping rewards for school board head and real estate broker Bob Spicer. Frank is beloved by students and parents alike, and sought after by women; Frank claims to have lost his wife several years ago, but is in fact a gay man in a secret relationship. While attending a conference in Las Vegas, Frank begins an affair with former student Kyle Contreras.

While writing an article for the Roslyn school paper about a skywalk the school is planning to construct, student reporter Rachel Bhargava begins to discover discrepancies in the district’s finances. Unbeknownst to anyone at the school, Frank and Pam are co-conspirators in a massive embezzlement scheme, defrauding the school district for millions of dollars. Pam’s part in the scheme is discovered when her son Jimmy uses a Roslyn expense card to purchase building materials for Pam’s home renovations; the purchases are noticed by a relative of Bob's, who alerts him to the purchases.

The next day, Pam is confronted about her actions. In an effort to cover up his part in the scheme, Frank convinces the school board to conceal the embezzlement from the public and from law enforcement. He also pressures Phil Metzger, the district’s auditor, to estimate the amount stolen at around $250,000, despite the actual amount possibly being far higher. Pam is fired from her job, but given the opportunity to resign quietly and make restitution rather than having her misdeeds exposed. Frank also transfers Pam’s niece Jenny, who works for the district, into a less visible ‘special utilities’ role, threatening to expose her own misuse of district funds when she confronts him.

Meanwhile, Rachel begins to uncover evidence of the embezzlement in the form of supply orders that were never fulfilled and consulting fees paid to unknown companies. She travels to Manhattan to check one of the registered addresses, and finds out that it's not an office, but an apartment building. As she is leaving the building, she spots Frank entering the same apartment; the two see each other, but Rachel quickly leaves. The apartment turns out to be owned by Tom Tuggiero, Frank’s long-time partner; Tom is also the registered owner of the fraudulent company and a co-conspirator in the scheme.

Frank meets with Rachel and warns her of the potential fallout for exposing the story. Phil confronts Frank about more illegitimate expenses, including first class airline tickets for Frank and Kyle. Frank threatens to expose Phil's failure to catch the original embezzlement and he agrees to maintain the cover-up, but it is too late - Rachel's story is published in the school paper, implicating Frank as the key figure in the scheme. Frank defends himself to Bob, saying that he had the school's best interests at heart. Despite his plea to Bob not to expose the board’s failure to report Pam’s original embezzlement until the school budget is approved, Bob abandons him and reports the cover-up. The investigation becomes a criminal matter; Pam, Jenny, and Phil are all arrested. After the authorities threaten to prosecute her husband and children, Pam agrees to testify against Frank and turns over evidence of the scheme. Tom is informed by the authorities about Frank's infidelity with Kyle. Frank resigns as superintendent and flees to Nevada with tens of thousands of dollars in cash, staying with Kyle at a house Frank bought for him. Eventually, police arrive and arrest Frank, and he returns to New York, where he is sentenced to prison. While in prison, Frank fantasizes about being back at Roslyn, where he is being congratulated for bringing the school to being ranked #1 in the country.

An epilogue reveals that Frank was convicted of embezzling $2.2 million and sentenced to 4–12 years in prison. Pam, who pled guilty to embezzling $4.3 million and testified against Frank, was sentenced to 3–9 years in prison. However, due to an oversight in the regulations governing the state pension fund, Frank is slated to still receive his teacher's pension of $173,000 per year.

Rebekah Rombom, who broke the spending scandal story, stated that the film counterpart "does a little more investigative reporting than I did."[5]

The screenplay was written by Mike Makowsky, who in 2004 was a middle school student in the Roslyn School District when its superintendent, Frank Tassone, was arrested for first-degree larceny. Makowsky bought the rights to Robert Kolker's New York article on the subject and returned to his childhood hometown to compile research for the project. He expected to write a film portraying Tassone as a straightforward villain. However, interviews with his former teachers and neighbors revealed a much more nuanced portrait of Tassone that informed the eventual screenplay. A decision was made not to involve any of the perpetrators in the development of the film out of respect for the town of Roslyn.[6]

Makowsky, Fred Berger, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Julia Lebedev, Edward Vaisman and Oren Moverman serve as producers on the film, under their Automatik and Sight Unseen banners, respectively. In March 2018, Hugh Jackman entered talks to star in the film. Cory Finley was announced as director at the same time.[7] Jackman was unsure about the story's genre shifts, but was convinced to sign on for the picture after seeing director Cory Finley's previous film, Thoroughbreds.

Jackman worked with his dialect coach, Jess Platt, to perfect his accent as Tassone. Jackman noted that, "I haven’t done a film without him—except for Australia, of course—for 20 years. I'm someone who can get to 80 percent of an accent sort of easily, but it's that final 20 percent that really makes a difference. He was on set with me yelling and screaming, and he's originally from Brooklyn, so he's around the area and knows it well."[8]

In June 2018, Allison Janney joined the cast of the film,[9] with Geraldine Viswanathan and Ray Romano signing on the following month.[10][11] More than a dozen supporting cast members were hired in October 2018, including Alex Wolff, Rafael Casal, Stephen Spinella, and Annaleigh Ashford.[12][13][14] Principal photography began in October 2018.[15][16]

Jackman felt one of the main themes of the film was appearance and the difference between the image one projects and the truth. He noted, "For Frank, how he was perceived and judged by people on-site was very important, and he justified that as being a part of his job, how he needed to project being upstanding to represent the school district in order for it to get to No. 1. [...] And by the way, it’s a battle that most of us face in our everyday life. It starts off as a teenager when you’re trying to get a boyfriend or girlfriend or someone to like you, and you’re like, OK, I’m not going to try that part, what’s going to work for me?"[17] Some reviewers saw thematic similarities between the corruption depicted in the film and the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal.

It had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2019.[18][19] Shortly after, HBO Films acquired distribution rights to the film for $17.5 million in the largest deal of the festival.[20] It was released on April 25, 2020 on the HBO premium cable network and on HBO's streaming services. The film was also made available at launch for HBO Max.[21]

• Official website
• Bad Education on IMDb
• Bad Education at AllMovie