Casey’s Reviews
Honor Society’s Not a Typical “Teen Movie”
Does getting to the top mean taking down the competition?
Honor Rose is going to Harvard. No ifs, ands, buts, or backups: she’s on a mission to get out of her hometown and that means Harvard, even if she has to sabotage her high school’s other top students to have a chance at getting their creepy guidance counselor to call in a favour with his Ivy League connections.
Honor Society (2022) starts off as a typical coming-of-age drama. Honor (Angourie Rice) is reminiscent of Cher Horowitz from Clueless, and the plot is not unlike every early-2000s high school movie ever: despite having straight-As, a list of impressive extracurriculars, volunteer experience, and the guidance counselor’s attention (he has a worrying, inappropriate crush on her), there are three people who might get the coveted LOR instead of her, and she needs to take them down. Her competition are the weird brainiac Michael (Gaten Matarazzo of Stranger Things), the shy, friendless aspiring playwright Kennedy (Amy Keum), and the popular star athlete Travis (Armani Jackson).
Honor Society regularly breaks the fourth wall, which was the first in a number of twists on the “teen movie” archetype. Like Fleabag or Deadpool, Honor turns to the audience to reveal her…
