Honor Society Movie Review — All Honor To The Amazing Angourie Rice!
You can watch the trailer for the movie "Honor Society" here - https://youtu.be/L4z67u7TNFY
I’m a sucker for romantic comedies. But when the end credits rolled for Oran Zegman’s coming-of-age comedy, “Honor Society”, I realized my allegiance had switched. Now, I’m a sucker for coming-of-age comedies, especially those grounded in realistic undertones. Honor Society (2022), for me, is one of those comedies.
The high school comedy stars an amazing Angourie Rice as its protagonist. If her name or face seems oddly familiar it would be because she played the famous high school wannabe newscaster/reporter in the latest Sony-Marvel Spider-Man trilogy. And quite reminiscent of her portrayal of her character’s reportage mimicry in those movies, in this one, the high school sensation she reports on isn’t a web-slinging spandex superhero she barely knew, but instead a web-scheming, knee-high sock, argyle sweater vest wearing, honor-roll overachiever that is herself.
Rice’s character in this movie serves as our guide to the life, ambitions, and schemes of Honor Rose. Honor is the only child of her mother who loves baking bread and her father who is on an inconsequential quest to complete his gazebo. The movie is replete with all your typical high school movie tropes —jocks, drama clubs, overachievers, popular kids, nerds, bullies, fights, and a weird and inappropriate guidance counselor— and as viewers, we are drawn into the small but eventful world of Honor in her senior year in high school as she strives for the ultimate glory of a 4-year plan: a Harvard University recommendation.
In a performance that’s reminiscent of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s acting in “Fleabag”, Honor Society’s main star, Angourie Rice, does a really good job with how her character breaks the fourth wall without derailing the flow of the story. Through these pauses mid-dialogue, we are able to learn more about Honor; and not just her, but about the other characters as well —at least to the extent that she perceives them. Nevertheless, even with her narration being our guide, we never lose the novelty of knowing that the seeming control that she feels she has over the events she puts into motion is heavily skewed by her inherent sentiments.
With a supporting cast that includes Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin from Stranger Things) and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Red Mist/The Motherfucker from Kick-Ass/Kick-Ass 2), the hour and a half long movie sticks to its landing by not taking itself too seriously. The movie is held together by a simple but funny script that avoids trying to create nuanced jokes but instead chooses to let the audience find the jokes in the characters' interactions. At the beginning of the movie, Honor brings us in on her selfish plan to get the coveted prize and by the end of it, we are left with a satisfactory smile that feels every bit as earned.
Honor Society in its subtle way helps us as viewers realize that even in our often hero-esque individual stories, the ambitions of others are just as important as ours. And most times, the ambitions worth pursuing are those in service of others.
*****
Rating: 3.5/5
Honor Society is available on Paramount+