The kids lift The Bachelors

April 13, 2025.

3/5.

Without saying a word, Wes calmly and methodically removes each item from his lunch tray before smacking his antagonist Mason clean across the face with the tray.

The scene marks a turning point for The Bachelors' protagonist, Wes (Josh Wiggins). Up to that moment, he had gone along with what the adults in his life told him: move to a new city, join the school’s running team, tutor a girl of questionable reputation in French, and quietly endure an emotionally neglectful father (J.K. Simmons) still reeling from the loss of his wife.

But in the cafeteria Wes finally acts, stops being a passive participant in his own life, and stands up for someone he cares about.

That someone is his classmate Lacy (Odeya Rush) who's rumored to be a "freak slut basket case" as she puts it. Wes has been tasked by their French teacher to help Lacy bring up her grades and pass the the final exam.

Lacy maintains an icy exterior but is in fact crumbling under the pressure of her parents' acrimonious divorce. While Wes grimly puts up with his situation Lacy is a self harmer, which he discovers during a homework session when her self-inflicted wound bleeds through her shirt. She makes him promise not to tell anyone.

Perhaps to her surprise, he keeps the promise. During an awkward family dinner at Lacy's home, Wes reluctantly reveals that his mother recently passed away. Lacy begins to see him differently, and maybe more importantly, understands how he sees her.

Running alongside Wes’s story is his father’s, though it’s less compelling.

This is mostly because of Bill's volatile depression swings. They may be realistic, I don't know, but they make it hard for the viewer to commit. Basically, he's depressed, then not so depressed, then has a successful date, then is overcome by guilt and gets increasingly more depressed. It doesn't hit home for me.

Part of Bill’s spiral includes a series of therapy sessions with a Dr. Rollens (Harold Perrineau), who prescribes increasingly stronger medication as Bill becomes increasingly despondent.

Dr. Rollens comes across as a villain and this could have served as an attack on that type of practice, but it doesn't go anywhere and in the end it is Wes who forces his father out of depression by yelling at him and throwing glassware into a wall and the doctor just disappears from the movie. That's convenient.

That is not the only time the writing stumbles. During a heated argument between Wes and Lacy he uncorks this gem: “The only difference is I don’t think the answer is to cut myself to pieces or being Mason Bank’s first call when he’s looking for an easy piece of late night ass.”

It made me rewind, wondering what the heck he just said. It's just a brutally over-processed line.

The terrific cast turns in strong performances, both big and small. The most important of the supporting ones may be Kevin Dunn’s portrayal of Paul Abernac, the school headmaster and running team coach, who also happens to be an old friend of Bill’s. Paul is a steadying presence and, as one might expect of a headmaster, something of a father-figure-in-reserve, able to enforce discipline, dispense sage advice, or offer encouragement as the situation requires.

Carine (Julie Delpy) is Wes’s French teacher and a divorcee who’s clearly smitten with her new colleague, Bill. But after they hook up, Bill shuts her out with little explanation, leaving her sidelined until Wes finally challenges his father to get over the loss and move on.

Paul’s wife Nancy and Lacy’s parents, Tom and Barbara, are each given just enough screen time to feel like real people, thanks to well-executed performances by Jacqueline Mazarella, Tom Amandes, and Jean Louisa Kelly, respectively.

The biggest cliché of a character is Wes’s antagonist, Mason Bank (Charlie DePew). At first glance, he’s the bullying high school jock we’ve seen in countless movies. But The Bachelors implies it’s not quite that simple. While the movie initially presents as established fact that he hooks up with Lacy on demand, there’s a scene that suggests otherwise, that what exists between them is more of an unspoken agreement: he gets the bragging rights, and she gets the validation of being publicly claimed by someone popular, even if they never actually sleep together.

Her wanting to go slow with Wes, which eventually leads to their argument and his overwritten outburst, is rooted in her desire for a real (as in actual) emotional bond and not just the "high school bullshit" she shares with Mason. When Wes asks her to promise “no more Mason,” and she rolls her eyes, replying, “I thought it was going to be something difficult,” it underscores how little Mason means to her. When he offers her the medal he won at a running meet it symbolizes he's there to give unconditionally, not just take or barter.

Simmons is as solid as expected.

But above all, it's Wiggins and Rush who make writer and director Kurt Voelker's movie worth the watch.