Old Boys

Another of those films that start in the middle and finish at the beginning and no one is any the wiser. No very funny and not very entertaining either. My advice find something else.

Amberson (Alex Lawther) is the bullied bumbling nerd at an all-boys boarding school. Winchester (Jonah Hauer-King) is the lead jock in a ruby-like game played in the middle of a stream. Babinot is the new French teacher and he brings along his daughter Agnes (Pauline Etienne). Amberson immediately falls for her, but she is taken with Winchester after she mistakenly believes him to a poet.

This is a Cyrano de Bergerac adjacent story. Etienne is the Pixie Dreamgirl although she's not that Manic. She's perfect for the role. Her older age doesn't matter that much. Her character is older and out of school anyways. I would like Amberson to be less wormy. He has to be a nerd, but he could be less pathetic. He's overplaying it and gets a little cartoony. Winchester is less idiotic than expected. He is certainly charming. All in all, I like these characters and that's fine for this coming-of-age movie.

Slightly preposterous plot but very nicely acted and produced. Gorgeous setting of Lancing College and scenes in Lewes help the visuals.The story could be told in half the time but that wouldn't make much of a film! The film is set in the 1980s and, unfortunately, propogates a stereotyped version of life at an English Public School which is far from the reality. (It wasn't that bad when I went to one in the 60s!). Worth viewing.

Some movies take a thin smear of ideas and bulk them out with ninety minutes of dialog, overemoting, manipulation, and stuff getting shifted about on the screen. But "Old Boys" takes a rich selection (or maybe an over-generous selection) of ideas and throws them all together, in the hope that enough of the bits will stick together long enough to keep a story-line going. And keep the fun going.

A parody of English boarding school stories? Make it an over-the-top parody. Eccentric school customs? Make them bizarre customs. A weird traditional "sport"? Make it a demented sport. French teacher writes second-rate novels? They're third rate, and he hauls around cartons of unsold copies. Role reversal at the end? Make that all go crazy. Happy ending? No, this is adolescence, and it's not meant to be happy. And it's not meant to end! What adolescence does to you is supposed to stay with you for the rest of your life. But it probably won't. When you think about it, getting all grown up and adult is a pretty stupid thing to do. Maybe this adult stuff is something for girls. I hope not.

Yes, "Old Boys" does look like a classroom of kids were invited to throw their best ideas into the middle, and when a movie was made out of this "material", they were all able to point out some bits and say, "I suggested that." There's some very nice cutting, quick flicks between "the nerd I probably look like" and "the hero I would like to be" or "the person I prefer to see myself as, though still of course a nerd." Whatever the story's developments (if that's not too strong a word) everything always remains fresh, like a dewy early morning in a magical English countryside. If you're prepared to cut this movie some slack, and come along for the ride, you might discover that any boring parts are quite hard to find. Scatterbrain energy and unrepressed exuberance, what else is youth for?

It's a film I recommend for the boy in every male. And what about females? Dunno. You can never tell with girls. They're a different species, mysterious, baffling. They're girls.

The real star of the film is the ___location. Having said no to both the Harry Potter series and If, Lancing College has finally succumbed to a coming-of-age movie where the nerd wins the day. And it's the ___location which makes the movie, as the film-makers get the most out of it. Well worth a watch.