Contrived

Rating: 5/10 (20 January 2007)

The overwhelming feeling I had from this movie was it was contrived, rather than a moral that grew out of a story I found it a story that grew out of a moral, rather like a fable.
I Thought the screenplay poor although as a story it was OK, apart from many cinematographic highs it has many bad movie making points, it lacks narrative and at times seems disjointed. It could have been done better if rather than just concentrate purley on the lessons with the English teacher they had other lessons with other teachers who had differing more traditional methods it could have added conflict between teachers, meaning to many pointless scenes in the movie.
Williams is superb and so are most of the boys, and a real feel of the 50's is created. Many of the situations "created" or contrived to prove the moral to me are ridiculous and quite pointless.
The big failure for me is the ending I find that the lads suicide is ridiculous and simply would not have happened to the boys character did the writer never hear of the character arc We needed to see more persecution of the lad by the father and other teachers, maybe even a little of the Mothers life and love for her son living under a dictatorial Father ( this was hinted at but not exploited to dramatic effect) . Its a good movie to see if you need uplifting and many will get a kick from it and I can understand why. I also found the desk scene at the end quite strange and I could not help bring Spartacus to mind.