This movie is based an actual events. Welcome to Roslyn High School in the early noughties. Here we see the ambition of the School District in Long Island aspire to be the best. Under the guide of superintendent Dr. Frank Tassone (played by Hugh Jackman) the school has seen significant improvements. As the movie starts it shows a packed assembly hall at Roslyn, this is in celebration of the District rising to the 4th ranked public school in the County. With the school's rise also comes the economical upturn in the local community, with house prices rising and basically the school becoming a major player when it comes to college applications, all of this combined makes everyone in the Distict very proud. The school has set plans in motion for a Skywalk. A walkway to connect one side of the school to the other. This has to go through the usual route for approval, which starts at the board, this is now at the planning stages and is almost certain to be approved.
So Frank, he is absolutely adored by the whole County, he has helped to transition the school to it heady place, but strives for more, he wants to be number 1. Nothing is ever too much trouble for him either, he is always on hand to spend time with parents, students and people within the community. He is helped in all of his work environment by the vice superintendent, and very close friend Pam Gluckin (played by Allison Janney). We see how loved Frank is throughout the first few minutes, greeting everyone in the mornings, knowing everyone's name and always at hand to help, making time to go to book club, where in Pam's words "those women adore you, and they speak to 2 dozen more, and with the budget vote is less than 9 months away". Frank's continuous help and kindness leads to a major finding that has catastrophic effects. Junior student Rachel Bhargava (played by Geraldine Vismanathan), is aspiring to get her foot on the first rung of journalism, with the school paper. Her assignment is to find out an update from management of the Skywalk project. After giving Rachel what she needed to satisfy the editor of the paper, Frank encourages Rachel to push the boundaries further, and in his words "a real journalist can turn any assignment into a story". Rachel decides to give it a go and heads back to Pam's office to ask more questions, within these questions Rachel asks about the whole tendering process of the Skywalk project. Pam unable to remember of the top of her head, invites Rachel to take a look in the archive room, and gives her the key.
This is where the real story starts to unfold and those events back in 2004 happen. I thought the movie was a slow starter, but it allowed us to familiarise ourselves with the characters and the concept of the story. I, personally knew nothing of those events, so i was grateful for the background building start. I also thought that Hugh Jackman, Allison Janney and Geraldine Vismanathan were excellent in their roles. HBO have produced a very good movie that has the path of reality, and be able to add comedy and sending you on a roller-coaster ride of feeling towards certain characters. In my opinion, this is the best and complete Hugh Jackman performance for a while, and yes including the later X-Men movies.
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