"Rushmore" tells the story of Max Fischer (JASON SCHWARTZMAN), a 10th grader at Rushmore Academy. He is currently editor of the school newspaper and yearbook; president of the French club, German club, chess club, and astronomy club; captain of the fencing and debate teams; founder of the Double-Team Dodgeball Society; and director of the Max Fischer Players, for whom he writes and produces plays about police corruption, inner-city violence, and war. He is applying for early admission to Oxford. (Harvard is his safety.) He is also one of the worst students in the school and has been placed on sudden-death academic probation. Max falls in love with a first-grade teacher named Miss Cross (OLIVIA WILLIAMS), and becomes obsessed with winning her over. He develops a plan to construct an aquarium at the school in her honor, and goes to one of the school's benefactors, a steel tycoon named Mr. Blume (BILL MURRAY), to raise some seed money. Max and Blume become good friends, but things soon go sour. Max gets expelled from Rushmore for attempting to build the aquarium on the site of the school's baseball diamond. Worse still, Blume also falls in love with Miss Cross, triggering a war between Max and Blume in which Max will use all of the resources at his disposal to try to destroy his friend.
