Making It

Phil Fuller, Kristoffer Tabori, is a 17-year-old high school student who shares a small apartment with his young single mother. He wears a veneer of cynicism and tells his English teacher that he considers himself >“smarter than 99% of the people”—a boast that frames his life as something he can manipulate. Seduction is his hobby, and he pursues it with a casual cruelty: he beds the neglected wife of the high school basketball coach, and he beds a virginal classmate by inviting her for a swim, only to turn the plan into dinner and a pot-spiked meal. He even flirts with a college girl by slipping on a fake mustache and loitering around the college bookstore, treating desire as a game he can win.

For a while, Phil seems to glide through life, ignoring the consequences of his actions. The classmate he deflowered reveals that she might be pregnant. Instead of facing responsibility, Phil persuades the girl’s mother—who herself had tried to seduce him—that abortion is the route she should pursue. Soon after, the gym teacher’s wife, who has a phobia about aging, tells her husband about the affair after Phil ends it. The coach then confronts him in a deserted weight room and defends his wife’s honor with a brutal knee to Phil’s crotch, a savage reminder that actions have real, painful responses.

Phil’s attempt to control outcomes takes another dark turn when he arranges an illegal abortion for his pregnant girlfriend. The twist hits closer to home than he expects: the girlfriend is not actually pregnant, but his mother is. With her fiancé killed in an automobile crash, she decides to terminate the pregnancy. Phil uses the money he had reserved for his girlfriend to take his mother to the doctor instead. The doctor, Dr. Shurtleff, Tom Troupe, immediately suspects Phil’s involvement and, in a harsh lesson, forces Phil to help with the abortion. On the drive home, the weight of what has happened sinks in, and thebrutal experience leaves Phil chastened and clearer-eyed.

As the story unfolds, the film charts a stark arc from flippant bravado to a sobering maturity. The sequence of events—romantic conquests, near-pregnancies, coercive confrontations, and a coerced medical procedure—pull Phil into a tough reckoning with responsibility. The tension between his slick exterior and the consequences that unfold around him creates a quiet, unsettling indictment of reckless behavior. By the end, the boy who claimed to be “smarter than 99% of the people” is forced to confront the limits of control and the weight of the choices he has made, leaving him with a hard-won awareness that real life cannot be manipulated like a game.

Last Updated: October 09, 2025 at 14:07