History Boys

[Tetedelacourse]

Watched last night. Has anyone else seen it?

It made me very uncomfortable!

I have a feeling it was supposed to be charming or inspiring or heart-warming but good God I can't remember the last time I squirmed so much!

Opinions?

 

[SamNichols]

I saw it in the Cinema, and got a wee bit scared when I realised it was all filmed in my old school. Therefore, it's wasn't filmed oop North, where it's set, but in sunny Watford. That kind of distracted me from the film as a whole, but I do remember that the Richard Griffiths character's actions do make one squirm, and it's not as good as the play but the Alan Bennett script still has some very amusing one liners.

 

[Melvil]

I saw it in the Cinema, and got a wee bit scared when I realised it was all filmed in my old school. Therefore, it's wasn't filmed oop North, where it's set, but in sunny Watford. That kind of distracted me from the film as a whole, but I do remember that the Richard Griffiths character's actions do make one squirm, and it's not as good as the play but the Alan Bennett script still have some very amusing one liners.

Richard Griffiths, for me, will always be 'Uncle Monty' so my laughs upon watching the history boys unfortunately had nothing to do with the script!

 

[Ben]

Thought the whole film was a little odd as even very intelligent 18-year olds don't have the breadth of experience and savvy to cope with life in such a refreshing way - for instance dealing with the teacher's homosexuality and gropes when riding pillion.

Also the period setting appeared to be wrong - we find out one of the students ends up being killed after joining the army later in life. When asked why he was joining up he says that wars are finished now - which may have been the sentiment in the mid 1950s where I think the story was initially set. But that made no sense in late 1982 when as intelligent 18 year-olds they will just have seen 250-odd servicemen die in the Falklands.