‘Honor Society’ Review: Winningly Edgy High School Caper Has Wit and Some Genuine Surprises

variety.com:

Tomris Laffly A nervy tale of accidental do-gooding, director Oran Zegman’s “Honor Society” is a surprisingly compelling high school caper conceived with youthful wit, aplomb and a genuinely out-of-left-field twist.

Written by veteran TV scribe David A. Goodman (“Family Guy,” “Futurama”), its teen protagonist seems a mash-up of Tracy Flick from “Election” and Cher Horowitz from “Clueless.” Possessing the former’s solipsism and the latter’s self-serving resourcefulness, Honor (a bewitching Angourie Rice) spends her days plotting her strategy to become a Harvard student in the next semester.Honor has carefully forged this plan over the last four years.

In her mind, Harvard is the only school that can guarantee her a one-way exit from a dead-end place. It’s not that her middle-class life sucks (it doesn’t) or her hardworking parents aren’t loving (they are); she’s just all too aware of the limited options her small town can provide, should she return home with a mediocre education.

This overachiever thus seems to have it all on her résumé: She’s a straight-A student with top grades, a philanthropist who volunteers at the local food bank, a self-starter and an athlete who’s founded a karate club.