by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
B- Rated R 109 min
This very British prep-school dramedy was adapted from Alan Bennett’s play by Damian Jones and directed by Nicholas Hytner. The verbose script features clever dialogue that tends to lean to the erudite side of the humor scale with its sardonic wit and smartaleck young male characters.
The story showcases of cadre of bright prep-school boys studying to get into Oxford or Cambridge. Set in the early 1980s, the scenario orbits around the students and teachers who have leeway to improvise their classes as long as they are preparing the boys for the rigors of the privileged British ivy-league higher education.
Staged at Cutler’s Grammar School in Sheffield in the Northern County of Yorkshire. (“Grammar School” has a different connotation in England.) Eight boys are showcased. They are: Dakin (Dominic Cooper), the fat clown, Posner (Samuel Barnett) who is gay and Jewish, Christian Scripps (Jamie Parker), the class ladies man, Timms (James Corden), the witty Rudge (Russell Covey), the military man Rockwood (Andrew Knott), Crowder (Samuel Anderson) who is the racially mixed person of the group, and Athar (Sacha Dhawan)–an Indian immigrant who has transcended his humble roots.
The school is lorded over by a sanctimonious headmaster, played by Clive Morrison, who has no sense of humor. In response to an older teacher, Hector (Richard Griffiths), fondling one of the boys who rode home on the back of his motorcycle, the headmaster says to retire early. He then hires a young Oxford history graduate, Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore), to prepare the boys for their elite higher education by using new methods–essentially teaching the test.
Irwin’s sole purpose is to prepare the boys for the difficult entrance exam for Oxford and Cambridge, rather than filling their heads with broader humanities studies. Irwin takes the boys outside to learn poetry, history, and commune with nature. And yes, he’s openly gay, but one must realize that in Britain, even in 1983, there was a greater tolerance for homosexuality than in the States.
Perhaps Damian Jones’ adaptation from play to film lost something in translation. At times the dialogue seems too rehearsed to ring true. Of course these boys have way above average intelligence, but their high level of verbal satire seems forced and not natural. To be fair, though, it’s clever and funny.
These boys seem to be living back in the 1950s era of British prep-school films. Their formality and lack of scheming to get over on the staff leaves the viewer cold. In other words, they seem like created characters rather than real adolescent boys, who in reality, would be mischievous and more into sexual escapades than this gaggle of asexual stiffs.
Still, this film’s in packed with a treasure trove of snappy dialogue, much of which is dripping with biting satire of Britain’s privileged class. The characters are Alan Bennett’s vessels to utter his views on the British educational system, and education in general. Viewers know that these boys are bright enough, and rich enough, to make it into the major leagues of Britain’s higher education. It’s just a formality to officially say they got there fair and square, when in fact, their affluent station in life has already given them an unfair advantage.
Anglophiles will like this film, but they will also see its flaws. Bennett’s dialogue rips into the privileged class with cutting satire. These boys were born into wealth and their higher intelligence has taken them far. But bright students who come from the lower classes never get the opportunity to get into the better universities. It’s a closed shop for the kids of the affluent ruling class. This injustice is at the core of Bennett’s dialogue creating these snobby teenage characters to speak his mind. At first, it’s engaging, but it gets tedious toward the end.
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