The history boys

SINOPSIS

Alan Bennett's hit stage play, about a group of Sheffield grammar school boys being drilled for their Oxbridge entrance exams, makes an efficient transition to the big screen. Utilising the original stage cast, director Nicholas Hytner wisely opts to change as little as possible, resisting the urge to open up the material cinematically. This brilliantly serves Bennett's screenplay, which is a masterpiece of wit and intellect worn feather-lightly; a perfectly balanced blend undercut with the darker subject of general studies teacher Hector (Richard Griffiths) and his sexual attraction to the boys. Which leads to this thoroughly enjoyable film's only flaw: there's something slightly implausible about these pupils who combine a kind of romanticised notion of male adolescence extracted from Goodbye Mr Chips with an incredible nonchalance towards the subject of homosexuality and their teacher's repeated attempts to cop a feel. Still, it's not a documentary, and this niggle is more than made up for by the performances, which are uniformly first-rate.