Bad Education

The man who wrote it grew up inside the story. Mike Makowsky was a middle-school student in the Roslyn school district in 2004 when superintendent Frank Tassone was arrested; he had briefly met Tassone as a child and later attended the same high school. He bought the rights to Robert Kolker's New York magazine article and went back to his hometown to research it. The best detail is also true: the scandal was not broken by the New York Times or Newsday but by the school's own student paper, The Hilltop Beacon. A student editor got a tip and pulled the thread. The numbers are real too. Eleven million dollars was taken in total, the largest school embezzlement in American history. Tassone was convicted of $2.2m; his assistant Pam Gluckin pleaded guilty to $4.3m and testified against him. Cory Finley directed. Hugh Jackman plays Tassone, Allison Janney plays Gluckin. Who it is for: viewers who enjoy watching a charming fraud slowly come apart, and the particular tone of well-dressed crime. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a clear moral reckoning. The film is more interested in understanding Tassone than punishing him, which some will find too warm.