But much of the movie’s zing comes not from the laugh lines, but Rice’s charming gleefulness in delivering them. A few observations stick, like her terror at how a good college can still send promising students back to their hometowns to live unremarkable lives, or a running gag about young people not using Facebook. Honor’s pitiless assessment of her peers, including the cheerful pair of supposed best friends she dismisses behind their backs, are overexplained first-level digs. This doesn’t quite compensate for the lack of acid wit in the screenplay.

Honor’s frequent fourth-wall breaks are often well-staged by director Oran Zegman-for a little while, it looks like they’ll happen predominantly in mirror shots, though that sadly isn’t sustainable. The direct-address stuff, of course, is reminiscent of everything from Ferris Bueller to Easy A to Fleabag (OK, they’re not all high school movies). Honor is a relentless overachiever (like in Election) from a somewhat working-class background (like in Rushmore) who loads up on extracurricular activities (like in Rushmore again) because she has her heart set on escaping her shallow classmates and going to an elite school (like in Booksmart)-a goal that inspires her to manipulate those classmates (like in Clueless) as well as administrators, while wearing prim schoolgirl outfits (like in Pretty Persuasion-OK, they’re not all classics). If Honor’s bedroom was more honest, it would be wallpapered in movie posters for the stack of high school classics the movie knocks off. (This is not even cross-promotion Honor Society premieres on Paramount+ rather than Hulu, home of the Handmaid series-though perhaps branded rivalries explain why multiple characters talk about the book without so much as a glancing mention of the popular TV show that brought it so much attention.) In one of her many direct-to-camera addresses, she forsakes her posters of Billie Eilish and Beyoncé, admitting that the ”only real thing” in her room is her cherished copy of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Honor Rose (Angourie Rice), punny heroine of Honor Society, has one of those bedrooms, but at least she admits that it’s mostly bullshit. So many contemporary teen movies are full of Insta-ready bedroom set-ups: Photos strung up with tasteful Christmas lights, neatly arranged posters of carefully selected musicians, maybe an expensive chalkboard wall out of a VSCO Girl catalog.

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