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I did the “Oxbridge term” at exactly the same time as “The History Boys,” the topple of 1983. I chose instead to net a scholarship to an American university that I won halfway through the Oxbridge term. I’ve lived in America ever since, but my first 19 years was in England, and I can characterize to this movie.
Some explanations are in order, because some cultural things are hard on American audiences. Someone once famously observed that we’re two nations divided by a celebrated language.
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“The History Boys” is not space at a boarding school; it’s a grammar school, and it’s a second-tier grammar school. In the pecking order encourage then, you’d have had your British public (but actually private) schools, then your grammar schools led (as the movie mentions) by the likes of Manchester Grammar. Then you’d have the grammar schools like the one in the movie and it would, for these boys, have been a heck of an opportunity (if you steal into the whole Oxford & Cambridge thing, which obviously I didn’t) and a bit of a come. They’d be at a disadvantage for some of the reasons given in the movie (fewer opportunities than kids at more high-falutin’ schools) and for the reason of simple English snobbery and the class system at the time.
Second, the class represented here is not, as one reviewer suggested, a mythical set where students care, teachers care and debate thrives. This is an steady plot, very considerable how profitable English schools were, especially in the last year of ‘A’-Levels and the Oxbridge term. It’s very well-portrayed here. When I came to the USA, where I attended a sparkling public university, I never recovered from my disappointment that there wasn’t the same level of debate and class discussion. Frankly — and I admire this country, but this was my experience — no class I took in six years at a great university here ever challenged me as the ‘A’-Level and Oxbridge classes had. I deem maybe Britain’s a petite like Japan in having very high standards at the kill of high school (and corresponding student stress) that then fades in university.
A clarification on the lives the boys go on to lead. They would ruin up, for the most fragment, in shapely houses (explore reviews below) . That’s the whole point. Attending either Oxford or Cambridge (while there are no guarantees) did shapely noteworthy dwelling people for life if they approached it aiming for that. I’ve seen that from afar in the lives of my contemporaries who went there. That’s why the stakes are so high in the yarn and success so dapper.
And a final clarification on the aspect of the movie one reviewer called “morally suspect.” Maybe so, but the culture of sexuality in Britain is different from the culture of sexuality here in the States. Britain legalized blissful marriage, after all, more than a year ago, with minimal fuss, and even The Times of London now lists same-sex unions without fanfare along with the heterosexual ones. The whole enlighten of homosexuality is different, including the assumption over there that sexual orientation is not necessarily consistent for life. And same-sex experimentation is illustrious in largely male or all-male British schools. So that aspect of the movie ought to be judged as considerable as possible in the context of the movie and probably not in an American context which — no offense intended — seems more inclined to censure and prudishness.
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All that said, and represent quality aside, this is an outstanding movie and a stout portrayal of 1983 in England, down to the cars and the music. The only thing I remember that’s completely missing here is excited political debate. Britain was four years into Margaret Thatcher in 1983, and politics and social clashes were very great on people’s minds, including students like these, and Alan Bennett completely omits that.
But that’s my only criticism. Richard Griffiths, who is a dilapidated British actor whose face would be instantly recognisable to any Brit seeing the movie, is extraordinary, on a “Goodbye Mr. Chips” level and better than “Uninteresting Poets Society.” Indeed, “History Boys” beats “Dumb Poets” simply because it’s not Hollywood-ized, it’s a worthy more right movie.
It’s got ample bullseye detail, too, like the church service at the beginning where the robed priest ministers to a congregation of three, which is the plot of the Church of England, Britain almost completely lacking American-style religion at this point, a very secular set despite the lack of division between church and area.
Dominic Cooper as Dakin, Samuel Barnett as Posner and Russell Tovey as Rudge stood out for me, but all the boys are tall, and all of the types felt very remarkable familiar to my memories.
The movie is often humorous, the dialog improbable, the design the boys are and the classroom scenes perfectly pitched. The vital scene is the one where Griffiths tutors Barnett one-on-one, and it’s indispensable because it tells us exactly why Griffiths’ character is a mountainous teacher, which has to be established.
The ending doesn’t bother me. This is Alan Bennett: This is about ideas. The ending furthers the ideas.
This is the same playwright who brought us “40 Years On,” yet a considerable different play and a powerful different thought of a grand changed Britain — and that’s why Bennett has endured, because he’s changed with the culture.
This is a large movie if you’re not offended by frank discussion (and ambiguity) about late-teen and adult sexuality, if you’re a bit of an Anglophile, and if you’re willing to sit attend for something that’s really a long conversation rather than an action movie. All of which is why it’ll have exiguous success this side of the gargantuan pond.
(3.5 stars) Position in the 1980s in a boarding school in the north of England, this newly released film adaptation of Alan Bennett’s play (which won six Tony Awards during its 2006 Current York race), follows eight young “sixth-formers” who are preparing for the history entrance examinations for Oxford or Cambridge. To abet the students prepare for the exams, the headmaster hires a young teacher, Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore), to improve the students’ “presentation” so that they will stand out from the crowd. Irwin’s goal is to enlighten the students to assume “outside the box”–not to be dull–when they respond examiners’ questions.
His mission conflicts with the goals of the English and History teachers. Hector, the motor-cycle-riding English teacher (Richard Griffiths), has taught the students reams of poetry, along with the French subjunctive (though it is not his subject), having students practice their French by pretending to negotiate at a brothel. He takes the long concept and values education for its have sake. The History teacher, Dorothy Lintott (Frances de la Tour), has taught the facts: “Plainly stated and properly organized facts need no presentation, surely,” she remarks to the headmaster. The students’ efforts to be popular at Oxford drive the action.
The film features many of the same actors who appeared in the stage play, notably the intellectual Griffiths as Hector, the sensitive Moore as Irwin, the tough-talking, heart-of-gold de la Tour as Dorothy Lintott, and the same eight students, joking, bantering with their teachers, and pursuing their common subject–sex. The film, however, is very different in tone from the play. In the play the conflict between the teachers and their views of education unites the action and gives depth and universality to strong themes. In the film, this conflict is grand less distinct, with the themes largely subordinated to questions about sexual orientation by various students and their possible abuse by a teacher. Some characters (especially the headmaster, Clive Merrison) are caricatures, a startling disagreement to the more realistically presented students.
In some ways the film is better than the play. The film shows the students within the context of a tremendous school, and film close-ups perform their emotional conflicts an intimate experience. Hector (Griffiths) is a far more sympathetic character in the film, due in broad allotment to the close-ups, and Irwin has a more fully developed role. Unfortunately (and I’m not positive how universal this jam is), the film I saw (in a major theater chain), was fuzzy, with vertical unlit lines showing throughout the entire film, making it appear more like an 8 mm home movie than a major studio production. The film tries to remove advantage of the broader possibilities of film vs. stage, but as the context broadens, the film becomes less unified, and the drama loses some of its punch. n Mary Whipple
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