A great 1999 movie starring
Kate Holmes.
In short, Kate Holmes is trying her hardest to be top in her class, the valedictorian gets a full scholarship to college, and being her mother is a single waitress, she needs this to survive and get into an Ivy League. She gets an A+ in every class, now she just needs one more in her history class, senior year, June, to succeed. Just one teacher stands in her way. Mrs. Tingle.
Mrs. Tingle is wicked. The hallways part when she walks. More sinister than Anne Robinson (You are the weakest Link, Goodbye), if you labored for months on your project, she gave you a C- out of her jealousy and contempt.
As our protagonist is studying fastiduously in the Gym, her two friends, one guy and one girl, come in. Turns out the guy stole the answers to the final exam, but as a matter of principle, she gives them back. Not to be deterred, he puts them in her backpack. On their way out, Mrs. Tingle walks in, snags whatever paper is protruding from her bag, and goes straight to the principal have her expelled. Luckily, it's too late, and she'll have to report her tomorrow.
In the evening, they go to Mrs. Tingle's house to see if they can explain, and he can take the fall, vindicating our main character. She tells them to go away, and the situation gets out of hand by them not backing down, and Mrs. Tingle winds up unconscious from the Brinkmanship, though it was mostly the teacher's fault.
Now, the three are in over their heads, and must figure out a way to get an A+, especially tough considering the teacher is now bound and gagged on a school night. There is no way now that she'll pass the students. All this in the first 15 minutes. No, the ending isn't a Deus Ex Machina.
This movie sort of plays out like it was originally on Broadway, there are few scene changes, and the writer originally meant it for theater. Quite a good movie, nominated for Best Kiss on the MTV movie awards (I forget if they win). One of those rare movies where you're too engrossed to pause for any amount of time, I found it very fast-moving as the plot thickens.
Now that I thought of all this, I'm going to have to see it again. We've all had a Mrs. Tingle. Shudder.