The plot follows Angus Tully who is a troubled student forced to stay at Barton, his posh boarding school, over Christmas, supervised by a curmudgeonly classics teacher, Mr Hunham, and the school cook, Mary, whose own son was another Barton student recently killed in Vietnam.
The film revolves around the relationship between Angus and Mr Hunham. Mutually antagonistic but forced to rub along, they learn more about each other, understanding the weaknesses and griefs that have made them as they are, and so eventually come to terms with one another. In other words, an absolutely standard plot with a ‘cute’ feel to it. Scarcely challenging. The sort of story I usually hate. But it is redeemed by the sensitivity and depth with which it explores the complexities of the two characters. It is well crafted.
The acting was spot on. The teacher was played by Paul Giamatti, previously the curmudgeonly prosecutor in Billions, who has rightly been nominated for Best Actor in the Oscars and the BAFTAs, winning the Golden Globe. The teenager was played by Dominic Sessa in his film debut. Mary was played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph who was nominated for the BAFTA and won the Golden Globe and the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. The filming was also spot on. It is set in 1971 and not only did the scenery and the costumes seem absolutely authentic, but so did the soundtrack (lots of 1970s music including Cat Stevens) and the quality of the film which had that washed-out, slightly faded, a little blurry feel that I associate with, for example, Love Story. They even went to the extent of having a censor card at the start rating it AA from Lord Harlech, a classification that was started in 1970 and ended in 1982!
Reviews
- The Guardian, giving it 4 out of 5 stars, said: "There’s a bracingly astringent bleakness under its surface layer of melancholy humour; a biting, sharp edge that counters the occasional lurch towards sentimentality" and notes how the slow deliberate movements of 'Mary' epitomise her sense of loss and futility.
- 1MDb scores it 8/10
- Empire (5/5 stars) describes it as "consistently hilarious, undercut with melancholy and flecked with profundity."
- Rotten tomatoes gives it a stunning 97% on the tomatometer and 91% on the audience score.
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