ScreenWize

Alan Bennett’s biographically influenced play The History Boys has been the darling of the stage over the past two years, cleaning up awards ceremonies wherever it plays. It comes as no surprise then, that a film version would follow, and the entire original cast including director Nicolas Hytner were engaged for the film, which Bennett also adapted.

Set in the working-class north of England, eight boys from a small and unknown Grammar school have done so well in their final year at school that they can stay on for one more term and prepare for the special entrance exams for Oxford and Cambridge. Their favourite teacher is Hector (Richard Griffiths - who we all recognise as Harry Potter’s Uncle Vernon), a wonderfully eccentric man of words who believes that knowledge is best found in poetry and music. But the Headmaster (Clive Merrison) is convinced that the group needs sophistication and polish. He engages a fresh young teacher, Mr. Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore), to adopt a more focused approach and coach the boys in exam technique. Even if the boys don’t benefit, the school surely will.

The film sets itself up as a classic underdog classroom story but steadily shifts its center to deal with more complex issues of what should be taught and how, and where the boundaries of intimacy between teacher and pupil lie in the emotional and testosterone-laden world of boys (who are really men) cramming for exams.

It’s a very wordy film – which can be quickly forgiven as Bennett’s writing is so delicately loaded – and it’s a very stagey film, a sin less easily pardoned. Director Hytner is confident with his subjects grouped safely together in classrooms and halls but unsure of both the small intimacies that are so crucial for a more insightful glance into character, and the freedom required when the action starts moving outdoors. However these are not fatal problems for a film where dialogue and ensemble performance are so central, and the classroom scenes are full of a vibrant cheek and energy, the boys challenging their educators to give them something, anything, of value. There’s much entertainment here for the viewer, even if some of the characters are a touch stereotypical. What is really disappointing however is the film’s truly nostalgic ending, with Bennett’s witty and touching insight into young men on the verge of life carelessly and unnecessarily transformed in an instant to a syrupy mess.

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Filed Under: Reviews by Simon