The Assassination of A High School President

The other night Netflix had suggested The Assassination of A High School President to my roommate and I. We almost never watch what Netflix recommends but this particular night we had a lot of work to do so we decided to watch it. I was already skeptical of the movie because one, it had a coming of age theme which I don't usually enjoy and it seemed like a cheesy idea as well. But suddenly I was an hour into it and couldn't walk away. I was surprised to see Bruce Willis as the high school principal and thought that helped added to the absurdity of the movie. He actually did an excellent job and played the role well. For a movie set in a high school I think they played it well and made it more intense than most. It captured this real more mature world into a high school setting. It everything from corrupt school politicians to little girls who trade dirt on somebody for stuffed animal unicorns. It was almost
making fun of the fact the it was set in a high school which I think is tough to do well.

I also really enjoyed the characters in this movie. The main character Bobby Funke, played by Reese Thompson, was this investigative school journalist who would do anything to get the truth. Although he is the nerdy kid who discovers sudden popularity after he writes his biggest article, dethroning the current student president. He then meets Franchesca Fachini, played by Mischa Barton, the old school president's girlfriend who falls for Bobby. She seduces him and plays the beautiful misunderstood popular girl card to get in his head. The writing between how they react is actually really beautiful and brings things stated earlier around full circle without being cheesy. Overall every character was so developed and relatable to either parts of society or just friends you know from high school. There we're these to weird foreign guys played by Joseph Perrino and Arron Himelstein who I thought we're perfect. They were so open and vulgar about things which made you remember that these are all just kids playing detective.

The music in this movie also really stood out to me in this movie. Daniele Luppi did a beautiful job with the compositions and added so much more to movie. I actually think that his music is partially responsible for me getting so into this movie because it just shuts off the logical side of your brain and lets feel for anything on the screen. Also M. David Mullen did a magnificent job with the cinematography. There we're countless times where I would just stop and appreciate how beautiful everything looked. It almost broke the fourth wall for me a couple of times because of how surreal
some of the scenes looked. I put some examples below.

Overall I thought this movie was great and really enjoyed most aspects of this entire movie. That could be due to me going into it with really low expectations but I guess I'll have to watch again to see if I still feel the same watching it with a different set of hopes for it.