History is Just One F**king Thing After Another (Movie Only) (The History Boys (DVD))

Member Name: marandina

Product:	The History Boys (DVD)
Date:	02/01/08 (146 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good story, engaging characters

Disadvantages: Doesn't translate from play to film that well

The History Boys are a group of grammar school lads set on going to Oxbridge after their A-levels. Set in Sheffield back in 1983, their intellect burns brightly fueled by the unorthodox teaching methods of their general studies tutor, Hector (Richard Griffiths). The headmaster (Clive Merrison) is keen to get as many of the lads through to the best universities as possible and so hires Mr Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore) to help them with their preparation for the extra exams involved. Crowther, Posner, Dakin, Timms, Akthar, Lockwood, Scripps, and Rudge all find that they have to adapt to a radically different way of thinking with Irwin's emphasis on spin rather than truth which is diametrically opposite to dear, old Hector's values and beliefs. With established history teacher, Mrs Lintott (Frances de la Tour) monitoring events, Hector's habit of giving the boys a lift home on his motorcycle turns out to have unfortunate consequences, stirring the waters up over their rites of passage which is an undercurrent of their progress through their studies.

Released in 2006, "The History Boys" is an adaptation of the play of the same name written by Alan Bennett. Directed by Nicholas Hytner, the movie takes much of the production and cast from the original play and translates it into a screen format. A recipe for success you might think, bearing in mind that the play won a number of awards including a Tony in 2006. There are plenty of things to like about "The History Boys". There's the familiar "Grange Hill" effect of youths in school uniform wrestling with the various life challenges that come their way as they battle to grow up. It's all here as you would expect: sex, smoking, drinking et all along with the intellectual cut and thrust of the boys challenging concepts thrown at them by the teachers. There's an extra political twist in the ongoing debate about non-public school kids making it to Oxbridge and an entertaining sub-plot about the essence of teaching. As Rudge puts it succinctly on a number of occasions "History is just one fucking thing after another".

However, I couldn't help but have mixed feelings about the way the movie turned out. Hytner directs and the assumption would be that a great play makes a great film. In this case, it doesn't. Many of the scenes look staged with camera work and script making both the action and dialogue look clunky and forced. It's as though the boys invariably take a deep breath before delivering their lines when a much subtler style of delivery would have had better effects. The characters and story are engaging for the most part and the sub-plot involving one of the boys being a homosexual and learning to live with it seemed credible and a story worth tracing. What I couldn't follow was (presumably Bennett's) mild obsession with homosexuality and the debate around it as a whole when we had the plotline we needed in youth struggling with his emerging sexuality. An old man on a motorbike routinely fondling his charges, Dakin offering sexual favours to his male teacher even though he's allegedly straight and his fellow class mates pondering their own susceptibility to homosexuality to the point where they ask for a report about how the offer of oral sex with the male teacher went all made me uncomfortable, not in a homophobic sense, but in the sense that the playwright and subsequent screenwriter seemed to be taking huge indulgences with the subject matter at the expense of a good story.

Maybe it's me but I found much of the script just that bit too clever. Often I found myself listening to exchanges shaking my head thinking that we'd just been taken down yet another metaphorical cul-de-sac. Another exchange, another occasion where nothing material had actually been said and it was more a kind of high brow, points scoring exercise. There are notable exceptions, though and maybe to a large extent, the movie is captured in the exchange between two of the boys considering their lives at present: Posner: "Do you ever look at your life?" Irwin: "I thought everybody did." Posner: "I'm a Jew... I'm small... I'm homosexual... and I live in Sheffield." [pause] Posner: "I'm fucked." Notwithstanding, de la Tour is imperious as the established teacher that everyone trusts (I desperately tried to forget her Miss Jones character from "Rising Damp"), Richard Griffith's is eccentrically excellent as the confused but passionate Hector and Clive Merrison does the best, inadvertent impression of Bill Nighy I've seen in a while. Campbell Moore is a bit limp as the supply teacher and the lads are all clearly good actors albeit a little over-the-top on screen as opposed to in the theatre.

With a run time of 109 minutes and a 15 rating, "The History Boys" is a movie for adults and older children. It's essentially, a rites of passage movie with a compelling plot and a fascinating debate about the essence of teaching. With plenty of humour, drama and a finale that the audience will care about, for the most part I enjoyed the movie. Incidentally, the movie's score rocks hugely for fans of 80's music with contributions from Echo and the Bunnymen, New Order and the Cure amongst others. The gay subtext takes away some of the ground made by the story and the director's translation from play to movie works only in part and so the film is flawed but then history isn't perfect; it's just one fucking thing after another.

Thanks for reading

Mara

DVD available at Amazon from £15.01

Summary: Overview of movie