Stanley Tucci comes off from the start of this film as very self-aware and intelligent, so the first half of the film had me guessing that he was trying to manipulate his student in order to steal her manuscript, while she was trying to manipulate him in order to get a book deal and each suspected the other's intentions. No such luck, as it turns out, because apparently we are supposed to believe that he really believed the student actually was attracted to him, and that's where the film lost me. There could have been a good cat and mouse story here, but there wasn't, and the ending wound up feeling more like Election and less like the Blue Angel, and this film isn't as clever as either of those.
Review of Submission
