Actually, it's an American high school, and what you read is what you get: it's built on a precarious cliff, which breaks off during an earthquake, sending the school plummeting into the ocean below. It sinks rather quickly, as a gigantic building would. The students and teachers scramble to escape submerged rooms and head to the roof to await the rescue helicopters.
No rescue boats? And they have to be near the shore, so couldn't they just swim?
And who builds a high school on a cliff?
And who builds a high school on a cliff?
Before the disaster, we see a crisis in the friendship of school journalists Dash (Jason Schwartzman) and Assaf (Reggie Watts). Editor Verti (Maya Rudolph) assigns Assaf a solo article, obviously intending to break the duo apart so she can have Assaf for herself.
Not that Assaf minds. He's more than willing to throw Dash under the bus in order to grin at Verti.
Not that Assaf minds. He's more than willing to throw Dash under the bus in order to grin at Verti.
Dash, outraged, writes an article which disses Assaf, mostly claiming that his penis is inadequate. Sounds like a spurned boyfriend, right? But wait.
The misdeed threatens to tarnish his permanent record, so Dash breaks into the school archives in the basement to retrieve it. He runs into Mary (Lena Dunham), who is there to retrieve her confiscated cell phone. At that moment, the school falls into the sea, so they have to work together to get all the way from the basement to the roof. And fall...
Well, you know the rest.
Dash and Assaf reconcile during the disaster, but things will never be the same for them again. They can no longer be a pair. They've grown up into hetero-romance.
Dash and Assaf reconcile during the disaster, but things will never be the same for them again. They can no longer be a pair. They've grown up into hetero-romance.
The story ends with the two couples, Dash-Mary and Assaf-Verti, at a party celebrating the publication of the book Dash wrote about the disaster. Assaf feeds Verti sushi. I looked, but it doesn't appear that her arms are broken.
In high school in the 1970s I heard over and over again that same-sex friendships are, mere placeholders, to be abandoned joyfully and without hesitation the moment a girl smiles at you. They are weak, passionless simulacra, shadows of the blinding light that is hetero-romance. Boys are to hang out with. Girls are the meaning of life.
Things haven't changed in 2018.
Things haven't changed in 2018.
The animation is pleasant, a sort of stop action with a unique color palette. But the plot is ridiculous, and the underlying message disgusting.
My Entire High School is the work of Dash Shaw, a comic artist whose other work include Bottomless Belly Button and BodyWorld. He states that he disapproves of the strict classifications of male/female and gay/straight: he's had "strong relationships" with men and women both.
So maybe some day he'll drop the heteronormativity.