THE HISTORY BOYS
A-
Great Britain (104
mi) 2005
d: Nicholas Hytner
At a time when educational “values” seem lost in a
politicized morass, when cultural debates have been reduced to either televised
sound bites or talk radio where one side out shouts the other, when it all
seems like such an obnoxious way to express oneself, along comes this
delightfully insightful film about high school students that is filled with
humor, intelligence and wit, that gets to the heart of the characters with
their precise choice of words. School
funding has been steadily reduced, forcing cuts in programs such as the arts,
which is really altering the cultural landscape of the country. Everyone knows who sells $200 basketball
shoes on TV, but are only vaguely familiar with any except the top-tiered
writers. To ask about painters or
composers is simply unthinkable, as if these are age old arts, the kinds of
things people studied before the invention of television. How boring.
Then along comes this eminently appealing play captured on film using
the same director and lead parts that scored London and Broadway stage success
winning six Tonys, adapted by its author Alan Bennett for the screen, altering
to some degree the play’s original emphasis.
Using the classroom as the stage, we peek into the lives of
some of the brightest kids in the working class town of Yorkshire, specifically
8 kids who scored so well on their college entrance exams that they actually
have a good chance of getting into Oxford or Cambridge, the icons of British
class and intelligence, and are taking an extra term just to prepare them for
that possibility. Not since Michael
Winterbottom’s insightful 1996 film JUDE, an adaptation of the late 19th century
Thomas Hardy novel Jude the Obscure,
have the complexities of British thought, class, and education been explored
with such relish and detail. This film
is a huge delight in large part driven by the same elements that made the play
such a success—smart, witty, eloquent and precise language as well as the
emotional development of character, featuring likeable kids who are undeniably
appealing because of their outspoken honesty, especially their ability to
express themselves so clearly, and their wonderful support of one another. No shrinking violets among them, they’re each
constantly aware of everything that happens around them, including each other’s
business, spending hours of preparation each night, coming to class alertly
aware of what’s expected of them, and in class they perform magnificently,
offering lucid, well thought-out opinions, reciting literary passages,
performing improvised dramatic skits in a foreign language, singing show tunes,
including brief excerpts from movies or plays where their teacher has to guess
the original source, like playing Stump the Band.
The teachers are just as outstanding, featuring the jocular
yet rotund Richard Griffiths as Mr. Hector, a brilliantly inspirational
sixtyish renaissance man who exudes the very soul of knowledge, who plies the
curiosity of youth with neverending quotes from poets of all ages, always
finding the right turn of phrase to capture any given moment, and in one scene
when he’s alone with just one student dissecting a passage from Thomas Hardy,
the density of thought in that brief span of time borders on the sublime. Frances de la Tour is a rock of Gibraltar,
her demeanor never changing, offering her expertise on her subject of history,
becoming brilliant at one point when suggesting a woman might be present at
their college interviews, going on an eloquent description of history as a
commentary on the “continuing incapabilities of men.” The school headmaster (Clive Merrison) on the
other hand, is a severely repressed, awards-driven administrator who thinks
only of the image of his school, thinking the students themselves are too
crass, but need special tutoring from a recent Oxford alum, someone who can
shortcut their path to the promised ground.
Stephen Campbell Moore plays young Mr. Irwin, a brilliant student
himself who distinguishes his argument by choosing the road not taken,
believing no one disputes the truth, which is irrelevant, that all applicants
agree on the same facts, so they need to learn how to play the devil’s
advocate, take the position no one else would dare make, and in doing so, stand
out in a crowd. In the classroom, the
young and the old are pitted against one another, leaving the students somewhat
befuddled when it’s clear their methods are starkly at odds with each
other.
There’s a brisk pace to the film, wonderfully expressed with
the musical selection of the Cure or The Clash’s “Rock the Casbah” as the kids are checking
out books from the library, moments that might otherwise be sluggish or
forgettable. A continuing thread
throughout the film are gay themes, with Mr. Hector being more open about it
than the closeted Mr. Irwin, but also in the portrait of one of the students,
Posner (Samuel Barnett), who can’t take his eyes off one of the other students,
Dakin (Dominic Cooper), who is something of a hunk, the only student who
regularly flaunts his sexual prowess.
One of the best scenes in the entire film is Posner’s heartfelt
rendition of the song “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” Bewitched Samuel Barnett
-The History BoysOST YouTube (3:12), emphasizing the male attraction in the
lyrics, (“l sing to him, each spring to him, and worship the trousers that
cling to him”), directing every line towards Dakin. There’s also a beautiful epilogue segment,
cast in a differering hue, portrayed with a kind of afterlife omniscience, as
the kids sit around and reveal what careers they chose in their lives. It’s an especially poignant scene that works
only because of the steady build up of shared moments with each student, who
are now intimately familiar to us.
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