Rating of
1.5/4
"The History Boys" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 05/25/12
This coming of age story set in an all boys grammar school was adapted from a stage play, and it really shows; the only attempts to cinematize it are a couple of clumsy montages and a dodgy 80s soundtrack. Not only that, having gone to an all-boys grammar school myself, I had a few problems with it. For one, the boys were all irritatingly glib and pretentious, and anyone who compares his attempts at sexual conquest to a WWI battle plan TO HER FACE would NEVER get laid! There were some funny parodies of teachers and their office politics (although Clive Merrison's headmaster was the butt of too many jokes based entirely in snobbery) but my biggest gripe was in the overt homo-eroticism of it all. It seemed to be saying that it's alright for a teacher to grope teenage boys as long as he's a bit of a laugh, and I found the idea of a (heterosexual) schoolboy offering his teacher the chance to "suck him off" as a reward for getting him through an exam utterly preposterous. There are some well written scenes and clever dialogue, but for me, it just felt far too much like a gay teacher's homo-erotic fantasy rather than believable drama.
