Honor Student

A teacher, Nick, teaching a convict, Teresa, how to write. She verbally shares a blurb of her idea story with Nick. Three years later, he publishes his own version of her idea. Released from jail, she confronts him and demands that he publicly admits the story is hers.

ACTING PROWESS: Out of the trio, Teresa proves the most outstanding. She isn't crazy in the way a psycho stalker tends to be. She just wants the world to know that Nick's bestseller is actually her idea. Of course, she is good at manipulating Nick's wife into thinking that something else must be going on, and because Nick is too prideful to confess the truth to anyone at first, Teresa gets a good hold on him.

What makes this film different is that Teresa doesn't want to go after Nick's wife or ruin his life as much as she just desires one thing: for her story to be told. The problem? As Nick reminds us, Teresa cannot write; she doesn't have it in her.

SPOILERS

The film takes an interesting turn because Teresa's intentions, at their root, are actually honorable once you get past her scheming tactics. Because all Teresa actually wants is to write her own story. What's interesting is that Nick is the one who helps her there in spite of her endangering his life, his wife's and his publisher's at the end. Honorable himself, Nick willingly helps her literally put her fingers to the keyboard and write. A bit like the ending of The Crush, Teresa winds up back in jail, but she gets to fulfill the desire that meant the most to her, which wasn't to murder anyone but to share her story in her own words.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: 5/5

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