TV Pick of the Week: Bad Behaviour - review by Yvette Huddleston

The school is located in the outback and has a ‘wilderness campus’ where a group of teenage girls live in dormitory accommodation with minimal supervision from adults and learn how to survive in the bush. There are long-distance cross-country runs, overnight camping trips and numerous other character-building activities. Into this hothouse environment comes quiet and studious scholarship student Joanna McKenzie (Jana McKinnon) who, it transpires, has persuaded her parents to allow her to attend the school.

The reality of the place does not quite match up to her romanticized idea of it and Jo soon learns that bullying and bad behaviour are very much a part of everyday life there. Having initially made friends with fellow scholarship student Alice Kang (Yerin Ha), a gifted cellist, she soon finds herself drawn into the orbit of manipulative mean girl Portia (Markella Kavenagh), a bully who delights in humiliating and controlling other less confident girls. For whatever reason, Jo is desperate to please her and drifts into following Portia’s lead, allowing herself to get involved in all kinds of subversive acts, breaking the rules and getting into trouble. It is not long before her scholarship comes under threat.

The narrative moves back and forth between two time-frames – 2022 and ten years previously when Jo first started at Silver Creek. In the present-day, Jo is working at a concert venue in Melbourne as a general assistant, cleaning and catering, while also pursuing a writing career. It is a chance encounter with Alice, now a successful international solo musician who has come to perform there, that sets Jo thinking about her past and trying to reconcile herself to it. Her surprise at the cool reception she receives from Alice suggests that their memories of their schooldays differ markedly. It seems that Jo’s experiences at Silver Creek have had a lasting impact on her – it has certainly had a detrimental effect on her relationship with her mother, and with others.

To make matters worse, just as she is making some headway in moving on, Portia suddenly reappears in her life and begins to undermine it once again. Close, solid friendships that were once important to her are sabotaged for the sake of impressing her former tormentor. It all makes for sometimes uncomfortable but always compelling viewing.