With Honors (film)

Plot[edit]

Montgomery “Monty” Kessler is a senior majoring in Government at Harvard University and sharing a house with friends: art student Courtney, womanizing radio disc jockey Everett, and neurotic medical student Jeff.


While Monty is working on his senior thesis, which takes a pessimistic view of citizens on public assistance, a power outage ruins his computer’s hard drive. When he rushes out to print a backup copy of his thesis, he trips on the street, breaking his ankle, and dropping the thesis down a grating into the boiler room under Widener Library. There Monty finds a homeless man, resembling the writer Walt Whitman, burning his thesis page by page. He calls the campus police who arrest the man, but they are unable to recover the thesis.


In court, Monty learns the man’s name is Simon Wilder. Although Simon manages to get the worst of the charges dismissed, he is held in contempt, for which Monty pays the fine. Despite Simon’s anger over Monty having him arrested, they work out a deal: for every service Monty provides, Simon will return one page of his thesis. Monty takes Simon to the house, where he lets him stay in a broken down van in the backyard.


Over time, Monty and Simon become close friends. Monty confides in him about his absent father, and Simon helps him see poor people like himself as human beings. He also shows Monty his collection of stones, each one representing a significant memory from his life.


Monty’s roommates begin to like the arrangement as well, with Courtney appreciating Monty’s newfound open-mindedness and Everett giving Simon wine in exchange for repairing the van. However, Jeff refuses to let Simon stay in the house’s basement on a particularly cold night in case of his parents’ visiting. When Monty lies to Simon about why he can’t come in the house, he ends their deal and leaves.


While everyone goes home for Christmas vacation, Monty stays to recompose his thesis. Simon sends a friend to deliver the thesis; he reveals where Simon is staying, but says he does not want to see him. Monty finds him living on the street, coughing and wheezing due to years of exposure to asbestos in the U.S. Merchant Marine.


Monty allows Simon to live in the house and refuses his offer of a new deal. Simon gets disability benefits to help with the rent while Monty decides to completely rewrite his thesis. Courtney and Everett are supportive of Simon’s moving in, but Jeff is still unwelcoming.


Realizing the seriousness of his illness, Simon writes his obituary, which reveals that he left his wife and child to join the Merchant Marines. Though initially angry, Monty eventually forgives him, taking him as his guest to a campus pajama party. As Monty watches Courtney dance with another man, Simon encourages him to confess his love for her. Courtney reciprocates and they begin a relationship.


Monty agrees to drive Simon to visit the son he abandoned, Frank, despite the fact that doing so will delay the completion of his thesis. All the roommates, including Jeff, who has come to see Simon's humanity, make the long drive. Frank bitterly berates Simon for leaving him and is dismissive when Simon’s granddaughter asks who he is. Before leaving, Simon adds a stone to his collection.


Simon’s condition deteriorates on the drive back to the house; the roommates stay up all night reading Walt Whitman to him before he dies. At his funeral, Monty tearfully reads Simon’s obituary where he refers to the roommates as his family, and states that Monty ‘’will graduate life with honor and without regret.”


Monty meets with his haughty mentor, Professor Pitkannan, and explains why he changed his thesis to a more optimistic subject. Pitkannan accepts his explanation, but informs him that he will not graduate with honors due to his lateness. Monty thanks him for his mentorship. He also returns the Walt Whitman book to Widener Library, symbolically leaving Simon’s spirit there.


The roommates graduate and Monty begins his own collection of memory stones.