Coming of Age Film Showing at the Library
By Mary Starr, The Brunswick News, Ga.
Jul. 19–â&ucirc&auml There’s nothing like losing yourself in a film that has as its themes both class difference and coming of age, especially if that movie is set in England.
If that’s your cup of tea, “The History Boys,” a movie being shown next Thursday at the Brunswick-Glynn County Library, just might measure up.
The setting is Cutlers’ Grammar School in Sheffield, a fictional school in northern England, in the early 1980s. The film follows a group of boys preparing for entrance to the fictional Oxbridge, under the tutelage of three teachers with very different styles.
First a play which opened in 2004 in London, “The History Boys” played to sell-out audiences.
But the play’s success was not limited to the British theatre. When it opened on Broadway in 2006, its run was extended, and it continued to play to capacity crowds, particularly after winning six Tonys, the New York Critics Circle and other American theatrical awards.
In October 2006 a film adaptation of the play was released in the United States, and later that year in the United Kingdom. The film was directed by Nicholas Hytner, the play’s original director, and features the original stage cast.
Cary Knapp, adult services librarian says it’s an important film.
“It has a lot to say about education and language,” she said.
The story combines the wonders and horrors of grammar school life which anyone who ever attended school, anywhere, will relate to. But the underlying current, driven by the three teachers, is the debate over the importance of learning for its own sake versus “teaching to the test.”
Two of the teachers — Tom Irwin, who believes history should be taught objectively, and Hector, who possesses a more subjective world view and cares deeply about how knowledge is applied to life — compete for the hearts and minds of eight bright British students from middle class to lower class backgrounds who are being coached in order to enter an elite university.
“The History Boys” could have run the danger of becoming an academic discourse on the importance of education and knowledge and the differences between the two, but it’s a comedy and far from tedious. The famous British dry wit and self-deprecation is in full force.
The characters will feel familiar to the audience, and everyone has at least one redeeming quality.
And, if all that doesn’t grab you, the soundtrack, filled with tunes by the likes of the Pretenders and Rufus Wainwright, will.
Knapp cautions that “The History Boys” is not for children.
“It’s rated “R” for language and subject matter,” she said.
Knapp says the film runs the gamut from emotional to hilarious.
“It is a thought-provoking and enjoyable film, a superb adaptation of a play, and one of the most grown-up films I’ve seen for a long time,” said Knapp.
For more information on this event, see the Community Calendar entry for July 24.
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