Bad Genius

Lynn (Callina Liang) is a brilliant student with no family money. His widowed father Meng (Benedict Wong) works tirelessly in his laundromat business. She gets a scholarship to a prestigious Seattle high school. She is befriended by rich girl Grace (Taylor Hickson) who slowly pulls her into the rich kids' world. They recruit her into passing answers to them. Bank (Jabari Banks) is the other smart scholarship kid in their class.

Apparently, this is adapted from a Thai film which I haven't seen. All I know is this movie needs a change in Lynn. I get the idea of a poor innocent Chinese girl being lured into doing bad by a bunch of rich white kids. It would be more fun if she starts the movie doing some scheme to make money. I would even accept a narration where she reads the people around her. She needs to be emotionally smart like she is later in the movie. The first thirty minutes are very standard and rather boring. It's downright uninspired. It takes a long time to get into something interesting. At times, I thought that Banks should be the lead character, but it really should be Lynn... with a change.