Student Body – Film Review

High school student Jane Shipley (Montse Hernandez) seeks to mend her splintering relationship with childhood best friend Merritt (Cheyenne Haynes) and fit in with her rebellious peers. When Jane’s math teacher oversteps his bounds, an apathetic high school administration forces Jane and Merritt to take matters into their own hands, driving their relationship into further turmoil and inciting deadly consequences.

It’s important that movies such as Student Body get made, but it’s also just as important that they are made by people who know how to brandish a gripping script. Sadly, Lee Ann Kurr is not the greatest screenwriter and that’s evident far too often in her newest film. What could have been a genuinely riveting film with a deeply unnerving storyline ultimately ends up being a painfully boring film chalked full of cringe-worthy dialogue and characters that don’t get as much development as they require.

What’s up with 2022 movies feeling like they have to have the shortest running time imaginable? I can’t count on both hands how many new release movies I’ve seen so far this year that don’t even run at a mere ninety minutes. Student Body is sadly not an exception.

It seems as if these days, filmmakers or studios are getting worried that people aren’t going to want to sit down for more than two hours and actually digest a story. Obviously, I can’t speak for the entire world but personally, I would love to watch longer movies. It’s one of the reasons why I’m so eager to see Matt Reeves‘ The Batman in March. A three-hour Batman movie that seems to actually take its time with characters and plot lines? Yes, please!

Kurr’s film is incredibly rushed and it makes sense as to why. I can’t get into too much detail to avoid spoilers, but essentially, this film tries to introduce a handful of storylines so rapidly, and it doesn’t feel like we are ever given a moment to breathe and take everything in. In one scene we will be watching an incredibly serious scene and then the next, we will have some weird joke about sex that feels so out of place. It’s actually kind of uncomfortable to watch.

But not in the way that the filmmaker intended. It’s clear to me that this film was supposed to get under your skin in a good way. It was supposed to be the kind of movie that angers you and makes you uncomfortable. By the time things get truly interesting, the film only has about thirty minutes left.

Those last thirty minutes are truly great, however. I wanted the entire movie to be exactly like that. It’s almost as if Kurr got some sudden jolt of inspiration and wrote some seriously electric stuff that she couldn’t conjure up for the rest of the film.

But I won’t say that Student Body is an awful movie. It’s not. It’s just an incredibly disappointing movie and one that feels so painfully average while watching it. The performances are all quite good, though. Cheyenne Haynes delivers a highly nuanced and emotionally layered performance particularly.

Austin Zajur of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark fame has sort of been typecast recently, seeing as how he only plays bumbling, goofy characters which is kind of a shame, but I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t enjoy watching him do that same thing over again here.

Student Body will most definitely leave you feeling cold and empty by the time the credits roll. What could’ve been a riveting story ends up being painfully average.