Dying to Belong
Encyclopedia
Dying to Belong is a 1997
1997 in film
-Events:* The original Star Wars trilogy's Special Editions are released.* Production begins on Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.* Titanic becomes the first film to gross US$1,000,000,000 at the box office making it the highest grossing film in history until Avatar broke the record in 2010.*...

 television film directed by William A. Graham
William A. Graham (director)
William A. Graham is an American television and film director.Graham directed episodes of many TV series including The Fugitive, Twelve O'Clock High, The Big Valley, Batman and Ironside...

.

Plot

Lisa Connors, an Anders University freshman, has big hopes of a job at the university newspaper. Her ambitious mother, Gwen, suggests Lisa should join a sorority, Pi Gamma Beta (πγβ,ΠΓΒ,PGB), as she herself had great fun. Lisa applies to Pi Gamma Beta, the most prestigious sorority on campus.

Lisa also talks her way into joining the school newspaper, even though she is not qualified. At the paper, she meets Steven Tyler, a fellow student with whom she becomes involved romantically. In order to join the sorority, mainly consisting of snobs who enjoy others' suffering, candidates must endure the cruel humiliation of hazing
Hazing
Hazing is a term used to describe various ritual and other activities involving harassment, abuse or humiliation used as a way of initiating a person into a group....

. Shelby Blake, another freshman desperate for sorority acceptance, immediately befriends Lisa.

When Steven discovers Lisa and Shelby's experiences in connection with PGB, including, apparently, having to eat broken glass, he is appalled. He publishes an article critical of hazing
Hazing
Hazing is a term used to describe various ritual and other activities involving harassment, abuse or humiliation used as a way of initiating a person into a group....

. This leads to his being beaten up.

Lisa refuses to cooperate when the sorority require the two applicants to strip and strut back and forth across a table while the sorority call out degrading and hurtful names and draw on the candidates' skin. In consequence, Lisa is absent when the girls take Shelby up a clock tower to hang a banner. Shelby falls to her death when sorority sister, Drea Davenport, orders her to go over the railing. The next day, Shelby's death is declared a suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

.

Reluctant Lisa, with Steven's prompting, decides to investigate even though the hostile sorority claim it was an accident. Through this she risks her reputation and academic future.

With Steven's help, Lisa contacts a student who was involved in a cruel hazing by the same sorority a year earlier. This student reveals that she almost died and received a settlement from the university to keep quiet. Lisa realizes that Shelby was pressured by her peers into doing something really dangerous that resulted in death. When Lisa uncovers the truth, the school authorities and the sorority do their best to silence her but Lisa is determined to end the hazing.

Lisa tricks the sorority leader and another sister into going to the Bell Tower where Lisa plays a tape recording of the other girl's account of her near death from Pi Gamma Beta's hazing.

As Lisa and her mother walk past Greek Row, the Pi Gamma Betas are all removing their belongings, possibly because Pi Gamma Beta's charter has been terminated. Lisa's mother admits that she enjoyed being in Pi Gamma Beta because of the people, not the actual sorority. Lisa's relationship with Steven survives.

Cast

  • Hilary Swank
    Hilary Swank
    Hilary Ann Swank is an American actress. Swank's film career began with a small part in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and then a major part in The Next Karate Kid , as Julie Pierce, the first female protégé of sensei Mr. Miyagi...

     as Lisa Connors
  • Sarah Chalke
    Sarah Chalke
    Sarah Chalke is a Canadian-American actress known for portraying Dr. Elliot Reid on the NBC/ABC comedy Scrubs, "Second Becky" Conner Healy on Roseanne, and Stella Zinman in the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother...

     as Drea Davenport
  • Mark-Paul Gosselaar
    Mark-Paul Gosselaar
    Mark-Paul Harry Gosselaar is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Zack Morris in NBC's Saved by the Bell, Good Morning, Miss Bliss, and Saved by the Bell: The College Years, Detective John Clark in NYPD Blue, Jerry Kellerman in TNT's Raising the Bar, and more recently Peter...

     as Steven Tyler
  • Jenna von Oÿ
    Jenna von Oÿ
    Jenna von Oÿ is an American actress and country music singer best known for her roles as Six LeMeure on the NBC series Blossom, and Stevie van Lowe on the UPN sitcom The Parkers.-Early life and career:...

     as Shelby Blake
  • Laurel Holloman
    Laurel Holloman
    Laurel Holloman is an American actress, best known for her roles as Randy Dean in the 1995 indie film The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, Justine Cooper on Angel, and Tina Kennard on the Showtime series The L Word.-Career:Laurel attended the University of North Carolina and...

     as Shannon
  • Jennifer Warren
    Jennifer Warren
    Jennifer Warren is an American actress and film director.Warren was born in the Greenwich Village section of New York City, the daughter of Paula Bauersmith, an actress, and Barnet M. Warren, a dentist. Her uncle was Yiddish theatre actor and director Jacob Ben-Ami. Warren graduated from Elisabeth...

     as Dean Curtis
  • Gregory Alan Williams
    Gregory Alan Williams
    Gregory Alan Williams is an American actor and author. Williams is best known for portraying Garner Ellerbee in the syndicated series Baywatch.-Early life and acting career:...

     as Carl Ridgeley
  • Tracy Middendorf
    Tracy Middendorf
    Tracy Lynn Middendorf is an American television, movie, and stage actress.-Personal life:Middendorf was born in Miami Beach, Florida. She attended Pickens High School in Jasper, Georgia. In 1987, during her senior year, she left Jasper to take drama classes in Miami, and later attended SUNY Purchase...

     as Kim Lessing
  • Isabella Hofmann
    Isabella Hofmann
    Isabella Hofmann is an American actress, born in Chicago, Illinois. She is best known for her lead role on Homicide: Life on the Street as Lt. / Capt. / Det...

     as Gwen Connors

Reception

The film was generally negatively received. Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

called it unconvincing and spoke negative about the cast and crew as well: 'No one's doing much acting, and director Graham seems hung up on the premise that the telepic's serious. Swank's appealing, but the character's a blank; Gosselaar gives his role the old college try, but nothing's there. Von Oy, suggesting there could be more to her part than is apparent, doesn't find it'. It continued: 'Camerawork and editing are perfunctory, and Roger S. Crandal's production design's conventional. Michael Tavera's score is monotonous'.

The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

was more praiseful about Swank's acting, saying that she 'gives an excellent account of herself in this made-for-TV movie'.
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