The phenomenally successful and award-winning stage play has been given a modestly entertaining screen treatment, and those of us who didn't see the theatrical version may fail to see why it was so beloved.
"The History Boys" features stellar acting and some juicy ideas, but it left me far from overwhelmed by its brilliance. Richard Griffiths does indeed give a marvelous performance, and creates, along with playwright and screenwriter Alan Bennett, a truly original character with great reserves of complexity, but I was disappointed at how small a role he actually had, given his Best Actor Tony win for the same role. His Hector, teacher of "general studies" at an English prep school, whose love of knowledge for knowledge's sake is woefully ill-equipped to ready the boys for the rigors of the qualifying exams at the elite universities, dominates the film, and his character is always a presence even when off screen, but Griffiths himself has very little screen time. However, he does deliver the film's most beautiful moment, a soliloquy in which he explains to Posner (one of Hector's students who, as a result of being Jewish, small and gay, is, in his own words, f***ed) the unique experience of reading a work of literature and feeling that the author is speaking directly to you. Anyone who has a love for reading will understand what he's talking about, and understand the glow on his face as he describes it.
Stephen Campbell Moore delivers a strong performance as well as Hector's rival, the younger, hipper teacher whose job it is to ready the boys for Oxford, Cambridge, et al. The debate between learning in order to pass a test and learning for learning's sake never becomes as didactic as I thought it might, but neither does it ever become as engrossing as it could. Frances de la Tour, who also received a Tony Award for her performance as a droll, acerbic history teacher, has a wonderful way with comic one-liners, and Bennett uses her lone female perspective to make some points that these men and boys bathing in the glow of their own brilliance in this male dominated world desperately need to hear.
As for the boys themselves, they all do terrific work. They're obnoxious whenever they're in a group, which somehow feels right for a group of privileged academics to whom the school itself has handed an intellectual crown. Individually, though, they all do much with the material given them, and even if they fall somewhat into those generalized types that all such movies are prone to -- the jock, the sensitive one, the stud, the fat one -- they do so only on a surface level, and not one of them can be easily categorized.
Clive Merrison alone of the actors hits a sour note. His interpretation of the school's headmaster is a fussy, unfunny caricature.
Much of what I didn't like about "The History Boys" results from Alan Bennett's preoccupation with homosexual subplots. I know Bennett is a homosexual and that he's entitled to address an issue important to him, and I know everyone will immediately label me a homophobe for criticizing this element of the film, so there's no sense in putting forth the obligatory defense of myself. But in this particular case, I thought the emphasis on homosexuality distracted from the bigger, and more interesting, issues under discussion, and felt like details shoe-horned in by a playwright with an agenda rather than details that felt necessary to the movie's theme. I also didn't like the maudlin ending, which felt tacked on and unnecessary.
So, in summary, I would certainly recommend "The History Boys," but when I think back on the memorable movies of 2006 (though God knows there haven't been many), this movie won't be among them.
Grade: B+
"The History Boys" features stellar acting and some juicy ideas, but it left me far from overwhelmed by its brilliance. Richard Griffiths does indeed give a marvelous performance, and creates, along with playwright and screenwriter Alan Bennett, a truly original character with great reserves of complexity, but I was disappointed at how small a role he actually had, given his Best Actor Tony win for the same role. His Hector, teacher of "general studies" at an English prep school, whose love of knowledge for knowledge's sake is woefully ill-equipped to ready the boys for the rigors of the qualifying exams at the elite universities, dominates the film, and his character is always a presence even when off screen, but Griffiths himself has very little screen time. However, he does deliver the film's most beautiful moment, a soliloquy in which he explains to Posner (one of Hector's students who, as a result of being Jewish, small and gay, is, in his own words, f***ed) the unique experience of reading a work of literature and feeling that the author is speaking directly to you. Anyone who has a love for reading will understand what he's talking about, and understand the glow on his face as he describes it.
Stephen Campbell Moore delivers a strong performance as well as Hector's rival, the younger, hipper teacher whose job it is to ready the boys for Oxford, Cambridge, et al. The debate between learning in order to pass a test and learning for learning's sake never becomes as didactic as I thought it might, but neither does it ever become as engrossing as it could. Frances de la Tour, who also received a Tony Award for her performance as a droll, acerbic history teacher, has a wonderful way with comic one-liners, and Bennett uses her lone female perspective to make some points that these men and boys bathing in the glow of their own brilliance in this male dominated world desperately need to hear.
As for the boys themselves, they all do terrific work. They're obnoxious whenever they're in a group, which somehow feels right for a group of privileged academics to whom the school itself has handed an intellectual crown. Individually, though, they all do much with the material given them, and even if they fall somewhat into those generalized types that all such movies are prone to -- the jock, the sensitive one, the stud, the fat one -- they do so only on a surface level, and not one of them can be easily categorized.
Clive Merrison alone of the actors hits a sour note. His interpretation of the school's headmaster is a fussy, unfunny caricature.
Much of what I didn't like about "The History Boys" results from Alan Bennett's preoccupation with homosexual subplots. I know Bennett is a homosexual and that he's entitled to address an issue important to him, and I know everyone will immediately label me a homophobe for criticizing this element of the film, so there's no sense in putting forth the obligatory defense of myself. But in this particular case, I thought the emphasis on homosexuality distracted from the bigger, and more interesting, issues under discussion, and felt like details shoe-horned in by a playwright with an agenda rather than details that felt necessary to the movie's theme. I also didn't like the maudlin ending, which felt tacked on and unnecessary.
So, in summary, I would certainly recommend "The History Boys," but when I think back on the memorable movies of 2006 (though God knows there haven't been many), this movie won't be among them.
Grade: B+