The Student 2017

Veniamin Yuzhin, nicknamed Venia, is a high school student in a quiet suburb of Russia dealing with a fragile family situation: his parents’ divorce is fresh, and his father has disappeared. His mother works three jobs to keep him in school and maintain a modest home, and Venia searches for guidance in the Bible, carrying a small pocket edition that he reads with intense, selective focus. This obsession bleeds into school life, where his frequent moral lectures and biblical quotes interrupt lessons and draw the attention of the principal, who must repeatedly address Venia’s behavior.

Early on, Venia’s fixation on purity and chastity comes to a head during a scene after he sees his female classmates in bikinis during physical education. He launches into a loud, constant reading of passages about chastity, which earns him derision from peers but also prompts the principal to introduce a new code: PE uniforms would require one-piece swimsuits for all female students. Among Venia’s peers is a classmate who walks with a congenital limp, a boy who appears drawn to Venia’s zealous demeanor and becomes his somewhat reluctant ally.

The push and pull between Venia and the broader classroom environment intensifies when the biology teacher attempts to demonstrate safe sex. Her show-and-tell uses raw carrots to illustrate condom use, a method Venia finds shameless and immoral, and he counters with biblical arguments. When she disagrees, Venia escalates the demonstration by stripping naked in the classroom to “prove” his point, triggering laughter and chaos. The principal intervenes and later concludes that the demonstration was poorly planned, and the biology teacher is reprimanded. Venia feels vindicated and doubles down on his selective readings, determined to convert others to his interpretive framework.

Seeking to mold his limp-friend into a disciple, Venia pushes a healing exercise that involves laying hands on his friend’s leg and praying for restoration. The attempt ends in failure, and Venia blames his classmate’s supposed lack of faith. At school, a female student who was aroused by Venia’s earlier nude display makes a bold move, pursuing him with sexual aggression. After some coaxing, the two exchange several kisses in an empty classroom, leaving Venia unsettled and introspective about his boundaries and beliefs.

As the dynamic at school grows more strained, the biology teacher continues to challenge Venia’s disruptive presence. The friend with the scarred dignity of the limp asks Venia to repeat the healing exercise, and the two go to a lakeshore, where the friend kisses Venia again, signaling a deeper but complicated attraction. Venia reacts with shock and, in a moment of fear and confusion, commands his friend to read a Bible passage before he steps behind him, grabs a heavy rock, and strikes his classmate dead, leaving the body by the water’s edge. The act is sudden and devastating, altering the course of both Venia’s life and the school’s social fabric.

Back at the school, the biology teacher is summoned to a formal conference to address Venia’s escalating behavior. During the proceedings, Venia unexpectedly accuses the biology teacher of disrobing and groping him in her classroom, a claim that shocks the attendees. The teacher, outraged by the accusation, slaps Venia in the room, and the confrontation rapidly spirals into a crisis. The body of Venia’s classmate is discovered at the lake, raising the stakes of the ongoing investigation, and the faculty must contend with the possibility that a death has occurred as a result of Venia’s actions. The biology teacher is ultimately fired, though she remains emotionally shaken by the turn of events and the false allegations.

With the investigation underway and the school community reeling, police reports begin to surface about the death found at the lake, though the full context remains unclear to the faculty at that moment. In the final moments of the film, the biology teacher returns to her classroom, where she nails her shoes to the floor and asserts that she will not leave, insisting on her innocence and resolve despite the mounting accusations and the unraveling situation around Venia’s zeal, the classroom disruptions, and the tragic death that has crossed the school’s doors. The film closes on this tense, unresolved note, underscoring the heavy cost of extreme beliefs clashing with a fragile social environment.