With Honors

With Honors (1994) is an American comedy-drama directed by Alek Keshishian — watch online on iFILM. Harvard student Monti Keshishian drops his thesis manuscript into a library basement where a homeless man named Simon Wilder has been living. Simon picks it up and starts selling it back one page at a time, trading each sheet for food, warmth, or whatever else he needs that day. Brendan Fraser plays Monti, Joe Pesci plays Simon.

The film sets up a fairly simple exchange and then lets it run long enough to complicate itself. The student slowly realises his five-year plan has not prepared him for a single thing Simon knows. Pesci resists the temptation to play Wilder as a noble sage — there is grit and sarcasm under the life lessons, which keeps the film from going soft. Patrick Dempsey and Moira Kelly round out the Harvard household. Stream With Honors (1994) online on iFILM.