School Ties (1992)

Since the cast includes teen dream Fraser, Scent of a Woman's O'Donnell, and Melrose Place's Amy Locane, the Sassy set should rent this sucker off the shelves. But grown-ups can go to this School too; it's a sharply written and acted drama about the rules of the ruling class, circa 1955. A James Spader with deltoids, Fraser plays a prep-school scholarship student whose football-hero status is lost when it becomes known that he's Jewish; like the rest of the movie, his terse underplaying makes the message hit home harder. In illuminating how upper-class bigotry can encompass both the actively fascist and the politely passive, School Ties is actually one of the more realistic — and least insufferable — entries in the recent prep-school genre. B