History Boys

A charming little movie based on the play by Alan Bennett. A class of young men are taught by a pair of teachers thanks to schoolmaster's best attempt to get them into Oxford or Cambridge. One teacher is a beloved classics professor who recites yards of poetry, prose, lines from films and snippets of song. He is a fat letch but the kids all have his number. He is teaching something to love -- history and the English language. A new, much younger prof is hired to help the boys enter college at any cost. He urges them to think differently and to take the opposite tack in an argument. A useful skill to have but he doesn't care if the students have any passion for th topic or if their new position is wrong or even offensive. In fact, the more jarring the opinion, the better. Who cares if it's wrong to argue about the evil in the Holocaust, just make the argument to get the grade.

Despite being about 10 minutes too long, the movie still works. Although I wish that I had seen the play. I was in London last year and it would have been the highlight of my trip but sadly, the film had already been made. Maybe we can see the revival on Broadway one day.

Who knows, maybe it's playing in English in Frankfurt. I'm going for a few days at the end of the month. Yeesh.