Directed by Nicholas Hytner
On the other side of the Atlantic to the prom queens, football jocks and drug barons of US high schools is the rarified atmosphere of a private boys’ school in England. A group of high achieving A-level students has returned to school for one more term in order to take the entrance exams for Oxford and Cambridge. The drama centres on eight boys and a select group of teachers who are expected to prime the boys for the high expectations of the elite universities.
The overweight Hector (Richard Griffiths) is an established teacher at the school but his methods for teaching General Studies are far from traditional. Games are played, songs are sung and quotations are parried. Although Hector has an excellent rapport with the boys, it is his after hour’s activities with the boys on the back of his motorbike that bring him into disrepute.
Mr Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore) has just graduated from university and he has been brought to the school to give the boys tips on how to present themselves in a way that will impress the dons of the esteemed institutions. He is a mysterious figure who takes a special interest in Posner (Samuel Barnett) who confides to him: ‘I’m a Jew. I’m small. I’m homosexual. And I live in Sheffield. I’m fucked.’ But it is the sexual power play between the young teacher and gifted student Dakin (Dominic Cooper) that takes centre stage.
The film is based on the play of the same name by Alan Bennett. Nicholas Hytner directed it and the original National Theatre cast plays the boys in the film. Although it is set in 1983, the sensibilities are from a much earlier decade. It is a very gay film and the repartee is spot on as an undercurrent of sexual frustration emerges.
