The History Boys

What Sarah said:

History boys is the film adaptation of the play of the same name, set in the early 80s following a group of boys attempting to get into Oxbridge. I think it’s got plenty of wit, dry humour and a pretty good soundtrack. There are a few stand out performances in the cast and with the exception of a few moments that definitely feel like they have come straight from the theater, the adaptation to film has been done fairly well.

Mike’s verdict:

At its core, this story is a commentary on education – specifically, the methods used to teach the classic arts: history, literature, and philosophy.  It presents a sort of trichotomy that juxtaposes classical general studies against traditional history as narrative and modern speculative history; giving the viewer a literal representation for each in the form of three very different teachers. But it’s an unusual setup. While most stories of this sort start with a base of students who are reluctant at best (if not totally obstinate), the titular history boys are engaged, intelligent and outright excited about their studies.  This is not the school movie trope about teachers struggling to get through to students. Moreover, the traditional teaching methods embodied by Mrs. Lintott and Hector appear to have been quite effective – they have elevated eight boys to the top of the class after all.  Yet, despite this, the school’s headmaster parachutes in the younger Irwin to work with the boys when he recognizes (or imagines) a disconnect between how his school teaches and the expectations of Oxbridge entrance examiners.  This makes the main conflict of story more about how the teachers interact with each other than how they interact with the students.

It’s an interesting shift on the classic school boy story.  Unfortunately, there are some aspects of the film that just don’t work well.

First, in order to bolster drama beyond just teachers disagreeing, an out-of-place sub-narrative is introduced that involves too many of the characters given how small the cast is.  It may be that some of the connective tissue holding this sub-narrative together was lost due to editing, or maybe it wasn’t meant to be a sub-narrative at all. But either way, it doesn’t fit well with the rest of the film.

I also found Rudge‘s character confounding. At the beginning of the film there is no indication that he is any less intelligent than his classmates; nor is he portrayed as any less hopeful of being accepted to one of the elite schools. Yet as the boys prepare for entrance interviews, his lack of knowledge, obvious contempt for the Oxbridge elite, and assumption that he could get by on sports alone, are revealed so suddenly that it is hard to reconcile his inclusion in the group at all.  The boy who hopes to play golf rather than answer interview questions somehow managed to earn one of the highest grades in his school’s history?  Perhaps there is something lost in translation from play to film, but even the final outcome of his own story is very disappointing.

Finally, the soundtrack is interesting, but wasn’t used as well as it could have been. There is a disconnect between the music used for scenes inside the school, which admittedly seems appropriate for a boy’s grammar school, and the music used for scenes outside the school, which includes New Order, The Smiths, The Clash, Echo & The Bunnymen, and The Cure. I enjoyed all of the music, but there wasn’t enough of a bridge between the two scene types.

This film comes across as very obviously adapted from the stage. Everything from the dialog delivery, scene structure and story progression feel like theatre. And it doesn’t quite work.  Stage productions are disjointed between scenes, but that is a necessary consequence of how theatre stages work – it’s not a feature.  Films have the opportunity to smooth stories out, to make them flow. The History Boys just doesn’t flow well.

Nevertheless, the film is intellectually interesting and entertaining.  The teaching scenes are such a flurry of quotes and dry, wit interpretations that they stand out above the film’s limitations, and the out of school music was fun even if it did seem under-utilized.

7/10