High School Confidential – Pretty Persuasion (2005)

Directed by: Marcos Siega | 105 minutes | drama, comedy | Actors: Evan Rachel Wood, David Wagner, Brent Goldberg, Adi Schnall, Elisabeth Harnois, Stark Sands, Jane Krakowski, Michael Hitchcock, Danny Comden, Jaime King, Josh Zuckerman, James Snyder, Ron Livingston, Cody McMains, Mike Erwin

‘High School Confidential’ is a wonderfully flawed film that, like main character Kimberly Joyce, is a bit too calculating and preconceived to be more than an entertaining ride. The film wants to say something about the media horniness of our society in which everyone wants to be and can become famous, regardless of the ethics or achievements of the person who is famous. Under the motto: “If it’s on TV, it must be interesting.” And the more sensational the better. In addition, the film and the characters in the film make grateful use of the motto “sex sells”. Or: “sex is power”. These aren’t particularly new revelations, and the bitchy, manipulative school bitch is also an element that’s been seen before — movies that “High School Confidential” are reminiscent of include “To Die For,” “Wild Things,” “Cruel Intentions” and “Mean Girls’ – but Evan Rachel Wood manages to portray her role of überbitch so convincingly that it is always fascinating to see what kind of behavior or remark she now sets up a stir. Her portrayal has biting wit and intelligence, and she even manages to arouse some sympathy from the viewer. That’s not a bad performance considering the wickedness of her (mis)deeds. The film is at least as politically incorrect as ‘South Park’; a range of racist, sexist, and generally offensive remarks and jokes are made – all with a wink of course or in a satirical context, but in the meantime it is a way of getting the jokes out. Middle-aged men and teachers don’t fare well in the film. Kimberly’s father is a dirty-spitting old man who hangs out on the phone with his mistress and his hand in his underpants in unguarded moments, and the teacher who’s going to sue Kimberly for sexual harassment is a little too fond of students in tight school uniforms. In a funny scene in which his own wife – played by Selma Blair – has to dress as a schoolgirl and has to read a letter in which she says she is naughty and wants punishment – this is explicitly emphasized (by the way, the woman no longer plays any role). in the film and thus only functions to tell the viewer something about her husband).

Kimberly doesn’t exactly come from a good litter. In addition to her racist, foul-mouthed father, she has a slut as a foster mother—whom Kimberly constantly claims to have had sex with the dog—and a mother who is completely uninterested in her. So she has a lot of trauma that later seems to have to justify her terrible actions. She has also had setbacks in her private life, but luckily she has a best friend named Brittany and a new Arab “girlfriend”, Randa, who she can put in front of her cart. Almost all characters actually exist to say something about Kimberly or to contrast with her character. For example, Randa’s unfamiliarity with Western culture is a great opportunity to shock her with pornographic films and all kinds of immoral or licentious behavior. As a character herself, however, she has no depth at all. And so it is with the film as a whole. While the movie story moves past the viewer, “High School Confidential” is fine entertainment, but once the movie is over, it turns out that many elements in the movie only existed to give Kimberly color or create a certain image of a character that other characters doesn’t really matter. Kimberly plays a game with everyone that turns out to be of little value or meaning, and the same is true, in a sense, for the film as a whole.

‘High School Confidential’ stands or falls with the interpretation of Wood and her strong and cold-blooded Kimberly, who manages to process wrong remarks so nonchalantly in the conversations that it hardly arouses any resistance. Somehow it seems to stem from a kind of naivety so that you can’t really blame her – just like Borat. Not that this feeling ever takes over, but sometimes it seems to creep in. After her equally strong performance in ‘Thirteen’, and a good portrayal next to Edward Norton in ‘Down in the Valley’, Wood once again shows her ability to play complex, daring characters and shows herself as one of the best young actresses of all time. this moment.