The Student (2016 film)

Plot

Veniamin Yuzhin, nicknamed Vĕnia, is a high school teenager in suburban Russia going through troublesome emotional setbacks following the harsh divorce of his parents and the subsequent disappearance of his father. His mother is a hard-working single parent holding down three jobs in order to keep her only son in school and living in their modest apartment. Venia turns to reading the Bible selectively and intensely in seeking guidance and solace in response to his changed family circumstances. His selective readings from the miniature Bible carried in the back pocket of his jeans make him disruptive in class. He is given to constant moralistic outbursts, quoting favorite Biblical passages with compulsive zeal. As a result, his mother is repeatedly summoned to the principal’s office to sort out Venia’s bizarre behavior.

In one instance, after seeing his female classmates wearing bikinis in physical education class, Venia goes on a tirade by loud, obtrusive reading of his favorite Biblical passages on chastity and continence. Although subject to derision by other classmates, the principal of the high school sees merit in his morality campaign and calls for a school code requiring female students to wear only one-piece swimsuits for physical education. One of Venia’s classmates, who walks with a congenital limp, seems attracted to this moral call and befriends the apparently otherwise friendless Venia.

Later in the week, Venia takes exception to his high school biology teacher as she is demonstrating to the class the responsible use of condoms for safe sex. Her choice of demonstration involves a show-and-tell segment involving the distribution of raw carrots to all the students in the class with sample condoms in order to teach their proper use, using the carrots as makeshift substitutes for the male organ. Venia sees this demonstration as shameless and morally corrupt, again using his favorite Biblical quotations to support his protest. When his biology teacher disagrees, Venia then takes the extreme position of making his case by counterexample and he strips naked in the classroom to “prove” the error of her ways and what would “logically” result from her classroom teachings about condoms if he did not protest. The classroom erupts in an outburst of laughter and confusion in response to Venia’s nudity and the principal is called to the classroom to quell the commotion. After restoring order to the classroom, the principal finds the biology teacher at fault for poor planning by her demonstration of safe sex with the use of raw carrots, which the principal considers is in poor taste, and the biology teacher is reprimanded.

Venia feels vindicated by the actions of the principal and intensifies his selective reading of the Bible. He tries to make a disciple out of his new-found classmate with the lame leg, and at one point Venia has him strip down to his shorts while laying his hands on his friend’s bare leg in order to heal the lameness through prayer. The attempt at healing fails and he blames his classmate’s lack of faith for the failed healing. At school, one of the female students was aroused by Venia’s nude display the other day and amorously declares that she would like him to be her boyfriend. She behaves lecherously and becomes very sexually aggressive. After some coaxing, she and Venia exchange several romantic kisses in the empty classroom, after which Venia guiltily recoils.