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Television Academy voters took to HBO’s Bad Education, which won the Emmy for Outstanding Television Movie on Saturday.
Bad Education is a comedy-drama that centers on the true story about the Roslyn Union Free School District’s 2004 financial scandal, the largest public school embezzlement in the nation. The film stars Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney as Frank Tassone and Pam Gluckin, who were accused of stealing hundreds of thousands from the district’s budget. Though their school district is on the up and up the scandal threatens to ruin everything the duo have built, spurring Jackman’s character to do everything in his power to maintain order and stop the story from becoming public.
IndieWire’s David Ehrlich praised Bad Education in his B+ review in September 2019, referring to it as “diabolically smart” and a “well-calculated masterclass of narrative economy.” “‘Bad Education’ always finds its way back to Frank, but Makowsky’s patient script has a knack for catching the superintendent unawares,” Ehrlich wrote in his review. “Here is someone who doesn’t have the good sense to realize that he’s the main character of a movie; someone who thinks that he’s always just outside the eye of the storm. That misperception gives Jackman the space needed to be life-sized in a way that his ‘bigger’ roles seldom have. This is the most human performance he’s ever given, wrapped in translucent vanity and cut with finely sliced layers of doubt and denial.”
Bad Education beat out Netflix TV movies El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. The Reverend, Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings: These Old Bones, and American Son for the award.
Jackman received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Leader Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his work on Bad Education.
The 72nd Primetime Emmys will air on Sunday, September 20 on ABC at 8 p.m. ET. The three-hour event will be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.
