'The School Duel' review: Winner winner chicken dinner | Fantasia 2025

Early Lunch

If you wake up in a place you don't recognise and you see something diabolical goin' down for real, you're probably in Florida. Another explanation could be that you're in a movie, and another is that it's both, which brings us to The School Duel. Written and directed by Todd Wiseman Jr. in his feature-length debut, this dystopian action venture finds us in the presence of Samuel Miller (Kue Lawrence), a 13-year-old boy living in the now-independent state of Florida with his mom Beth (Christina Brucato). Quite small and scrawny for his age, Sam is being bullied at school, but he also has a liking for guns, right-wing propaganda and violence. A chance to escape the situation in school and embrace his interests instead emerges, and so Sam enlists for "School Duel", a real-life battle royale, which the state hosts in their attempt to reduce the number of school shootings. It's a fight to the death.

The framework of the piece might be dystopian, but the creatives are tapping into modern anxieties and dissonances that are worsening rapidly in the United States every day it seems. Wiseman and co. are tackling the unfathomable epidemic of school shootings, the equally unfathomable inertia when it comes to doing something about it, and other related topics like the gun problem, nationalism, fascism and edgy internet culture shepherded by bigoted "content creators". Samuel is the mirror for these frictions as they often first target white teen boys who have a poor or nonexistent relationship with proper education that would challenge such toxic, narrow-minded ideologies. So, if you're looking for subtlety, you're in the wrong place, my friend. This is a forthright, political and angry story about the worst case scenario in which children's futures are on the line.

How this forthrightness is presented is just as bleak, but it's the most striking thing about the film. Wiseman's directorial approach feels like a statement, but it also matches the farce that is the world of The School Duel, as well as its black-and-white worldview that crushes colourful individuality in favour of blocks of militaristic, nationalist grey. Speaking of black-and-white, Kyle Deitz's harsh cinematography harmonises with the vision throughout with creative camera placement, lens choices and skewed perspectives. You could follow the story and action even with your sound off, which is great because the acting—excluding Lawrence who shows a lot of promise here—and dialogue aren't always at the level where they need to be.

Most of those issues regarding the script and casting rear their ugly head when we're with Beth, who's a very underwritten character, or the overseers of the duels. This also deflates editor Bryan Gaynor's craft, which is actually quite impressive when conducting the big action set piece that is the duel. Sadly, cross-cutting between Samuel and Beth towards the end doesn't work because the latter's perspective has insufficient writing. This mother-son relationship is supposed to be the narrative's emotional crux, but the impact just isn't there as Wiseman focuses more on the depiction of violence and absurdity at the battle royale. There isn't a standout performance to smooth out these peaks and valleys either.

Ultimately, the film is a bit of a hotchpotch of intentions, but at least it is a stylistically ambitious and razor-sharp hotchpotch, and so it ends up being rather memorable. The bleakness won't attract hoards of people, but there's enough to dissect in its satire and political commentary if you decide to ready up and join the games.

Smileys: Directing, cinematography

Frowneys: Screenplay

We'll never know if the kids thanked the bus drivers.

3.5/5

[*Editor's note: Apologies for the image quality. Neither the festival nor the publicist(s) provided high-quality stills before the publication of this review.]