It is fall semester at Anders College, and journalism student Lisa Conners is welcomed into the Pi Gamma Beta sorority. Lisa's mother Gwen was an Anders graduate and a proud "Pi Gamm." Eager to please her mom, the daughter has passed muster during rush week and has received a bid from the sorority. And now, the nightmare begins for Lisa Conners.

Lisa's roommate, Shelby Blake, has also won a bid to Pi Gamma Beta, but young Shelby is much more sensitive and vulnerable than Lisa. In her attempt to curry favor with the sisters, Shelby endures a humiliating hazing experience in which "the Queen of the Wannabees" is called insensitive names like "Thunder Thighs." Shelby is then led up to the clock tower where she is forced to install a large banner. With her fear of heights, the anxious Shelby slips and tumbles to her death on the quad. The sisters then engage in a conspiracy of silence about their complicity in the tragedy.

In the film's major subplot, a budding romance develops between Lisa and a fellow writer for the school newspaper, "The Daily Crusader." Steven Tyler is one of the film's most interesting characters as he researches the Pi Gamms and discovers a past incident of hazing that was covered up by the college. The lovebirds collaborate to eventually meet with Anne-Marie Johnson, who will blow the whistle on the two sorority ringleaders, Drea and Kim.

The filmmakers were successful in developing a gritty realism to campus life. Visually, campus scenes did seem realistic, and the unpleasant sorority sequences of initiation and abuse during "hell week" were convincingly portrayed. The Pi Gamm's motto of "Commitment! Unity! Trust!" had a clear appeal to gullible recruits. Dean Curtis, the clueless administrator, who studiously avoided close scrutiny of the Greek system, was entirely believable.

But, apart from the hard-working reporter Steven, the characters in the film never cracked a book. The development of character of Lisa's mother also seemed implausible, as the naive mom failed to listen to her daughter's story of the truth of the hazing occurring at her alma mater.

So, perhaps the most telling line of the film was spoken by Gwen Conners when she finally came to her senses about how her daughter was being abused in the academy. While gazing nostalgically at the grand old sorority building of Pi Gamma Beta, Gwen blurts out, "What a waste!!!"

This movie has the same thematic than Wolfe's book : a girl's experience in campus life, and particularly about what happens outside the studies… The focus is the fraternity. I never know this kind of membership but this opportunity for parties, booze is shared by both medias and i'm sure this grand ceremony with pledges, robes, ceremony is actually accurate as it seems totally American… Hilary is totally convincing as this new student and she is all the more excellent than she is one of the kind : it's really someone else compared to the lascivious, no clothes, no brain blondes whom we are fed usually. The mystery surrounding the real activities of this female fraternity is thrilling. However, the edit misleads totally the content : from the start, you expect to find paranormal, devilish motives and there are hints for that and at the end, it's just criminal fact. So it's a bit disappointing and i have the feeling to have been cheated !

Spoilers Dying to Belong is about a girl in her freshman year of college whose best friend is killed during hazing. She investigates whether it was really an accident or if there is something more sinister going on. This is an OK film, not as good as some of the comment on here say ("Best TV movie ever" is a gross exaggeration),but decent all the same. The acting is good, for the most part, the girl playing Kim over acted her way through every scene, making her part in the ending too obvious. Speaking of the ending, it was a little too predictable, not because of the writing but because of the direction. The way we see it, a girl is on the roof of a church or something being told that she'll win "Best Pledge" if she hangs a banner. We then see her friend on the ground realising she's disappeared, then the girl falling. This means the audience already knows she was forced onto the roof, which means the next 45 minutes of what's supposed to be tense is actually less exciting than the start of the film. Still, its worth watching, 7/10