How to Cheat in the Leaving Certificate

The film captures the many contradictions of Irish culture during the 1990s; the institutional doctrine buttressing capitalism, youth idealism listlessly adrift from organised counter-culture, and a middle class now finally assured of its privilege.

The concoction pits the film's motley protagonists against - ostensibly - the state education system, but as their folly unfolds we are called to question how the life-limiting assumptions made about them have little to do with the titular exam.