Guidance (2015)

Out-of-work and constantly-soused actor is about to be evicted, so he decides to lie his way into the position of high school guidance counselor. He doesn’t get anywhere with the students until he starts being himself: i.e. a self-medicating, authority-hating enabler who actually likes the students and can relate because he’s in a state of arrested development.

Things go off the rails super fast. For a minute it feels like there might be something here -- these kids need an adult advocate and this guy actually does understand them and wants to help. But his only goal seems to be making them happy and getting them what they want. There’s no larger goal of getting them what they need. Even if I ignore the practical and just roll with it, anything the film was building gets tossed out the window in the third act when things don’t so much blow up as fizzle.

D+