The mood of possibility
Movies
As The History Boys filled
the screen a lad pedaled his bicycle through a quaint English town to a bit of
’40s-era swing, so I curled up in the flickering dark, anticipating a tale of
plucky wartime Brits banding together for some scenic reason. Then, to my
surprise, the infectious New Order classic “Blue Monday” kicked in, and after a
scary flashback to the gruelingly dissonant Marie
Antoinette I was transported to 1983, a Yorkshire high school, in which a
swarm of jabbering young men were congratulating each other for being
completely awesome. So much for my expectations.
If, like me, you are
un-theatrically inclined, then you might not know about playwright Alan
Bennett’s The History Boys, the story
of a group of gifted students and the educators who inspired them, which came
barreling onto Broadway earlier this year after a smash London run and won a
record six Tony Awards (the most since 1949’s Death of a Salesman). Between the London
and New York
engagements the cast and crew made the film version, no doubt encouraged by the
fact that Bennett and director Nicholas Hytner had
once before made a much-praised jump from stage to screen with 1995’s The Madness of King George. And they’re
mostly successful again, with only the play’s Anglo-centricity and staginess
working against it. As for its well-trod subject matter, The History Boys actually has something fresh to say.
The film opens as eight boys
are readying for the exams that could grant them
coveted spots at Oxford and Cambridge universities, and the interactions
between themselves and their teachers make it obvious that they’re a tight-knit
and favored crew. At first the largely pasty and pointy-faced kids are hard to
keep straight, save for the three token (read: quite underdeveloped) black,
Muslim, and chubby students, but two of them quickly stand out: the charming,
manipulative Dakin (Dominic Cooper, a star in the making) and the sensitive
(read: maybe gay) Posner, played by Samuel Barnett, the only History Boy with a
Tony nomination.
The individuals in charge of
tutoring these young men in history come at their jobs from very different
angles. Middle-aged Hector (recognizable character actor Richard Griffiths) is
the old-fashioned general studies teacher, not averse to swatting his students
and rather keen on schooling them in torch songs and poetry. The kids accept
his unorthodox style as well as his penchant for groping, a fact that the film
at first disturbingly plays for laughs but which eventually becomes
career-threatening. Mrs. Lintott (the flawless
Frances de la Tour) is the affectionate voice of reason, even though she
finally unloads on her students and colleagues with thoughts on how history is
“a commentary on the continuing incapabilities of
men.”
The new instructor is Mr.
Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore in a deceptively subtle role),
a forward thinker who challenges the boys with novel ways of deconstructing the
past, and the plot is set into motion upon his arrival. As Irwin and Hector try
to figure out a way to coexist peacefully while they war for the hearts and
minds of their students, ladies’ man Dakin finds himself inexplicably drawn to
the seemingly unimpressed Irwin, and Posner grapples with his possible
homosexuality, terrified of a Hector-like life with the closet door open just a
crack.
Bennett adapted his play for
the screen version, and this is where the transition from footlights to film a
gets little choppy. Rapid-fire stage dialogue (except Mamet-speak) almost
always seems unnatural on celluloid, as do a play’s pauses for crowd reaction
that often make their way to the screen, presumably so as not to disrupt the
actors’ flow. It’s a minor qualm that falls away as the film settles in and the
viewer gets used to the rhythm. And it’s refreshing to come upon a soundtrack
that feels no need to show off its obscure knowledge of music. Besides New
Order, much-played songs from the Clash (“Rock the Casbah”)
and the Smiths (“This Charming Man”) lend a kind of shared-history feel to
things.
The cast’s thorough
entrenchment in their roles allows for some extraordinary performances. Coming
off of stage honors on both sides of the Atlantic, Griffiths is the Oscar-worthy standout, with
a third-act breakdown that is heartwrenching in its
openness, tearfully questioning the life that led up to his inappropriate
behavior then calmly accepting himself when he realizes everyone else already
does. The ultimate resolution to the molestation issue as well as a separate
student-teacher flirtation is a little too convenient, but the film’s true
focus is summed up in the final scene, a cleverly shot testament to how
teachers can shape the destinies of their students.
The History Boys (R),
directed by Nicholas Hytner, opens Friday, December
22, at Little Theatres.
This article appears in Dec 20-26, 2006.
