The story of "Cheaters" is full of ironies, more perhaps than the film is on to. It's constructed like one of those films about the dedicated teacher and the students whose lives he changes forever: "Deads Poets Society" or "Dangerous Minds". The only catch is that what he schools them in is cheating. Or what they school him in: one of the ironies is that we can't be sure to what extent it works both ways. In the end the teacher loses and his pet student wins. The film ends with contrasting scenes of the two of them: he's shown as cynical but also unhappy about the corruption of the world; she's one step ahead of him, indifferent to it and confident in her ability to survive. Our uncertainty about how much of this the film recognizes is one of the things that make it interesting. It's honest enough so that you can question or quarrel with its attitude, if you can figure out what it is. On the one hand, we hear the teacher's mother exposing his shallowness and self-justification. On the other, we're shown the students' victory straight, as if they'd earned it totally. The kids' immaturities aren't slighted, but everyone in the story--everyone--other than them and the teacher is a hypocrite, a scoundrel, or a sap. Their sentimentalization and the blanket accusation hurled at the rest of the world makes me doubt the accuracy of the film's account of events, even in fictional terms. But it leaves itself open for such criticism. It gives the impression, as it were, of questioning itself, in the same way the teacher and some of his students do. The blithe amorality of his star student at the end may be the last word, but the happy ending, if it is one, is highly equivocal. The film gets you thinking about where you stand, which character you'd be. In a TV movie that's more than can reasonably be hoped for.
Review of Cheaters
