Who's in It: Richard Griffiths, Frances de la Tour, Stephen Campbell Moore, James Corden, Andrew Knott, Russell Tovey, Jame Parker, Dominic Cooper, Samuel Barnett
The Basics: Eight over-achieving sixth-year students (that's being a high-school senior in England) are assigned a tutor to help them get into Oxford or Cambridge. They like him well enough, but he's all about teaching to the test, rather than the boys' favorite teacher (Griffiths), a man whose willingness to go off-script is well known, as is his propensity for putting the moves on his students.
What's the Deal? What's so cool about this movie is that it's about happily living in a hermetically sealed bubble of ideas surrounded by other people who take ideas seriously and are happy to live there too. None of the dialogue sounds a thing like what the normal 17-year-old would be caught dead talking about ("What is history?" for example). But just sitting in on the movie is like getting to spy on a private club for smart people. It's like what Dead Poet's Society would have been if it hadn't been stupid emo crap.
And Then There's the Fondling: The most beloved teacher in the place (Griffiths) has a ritual that involves copping feels of his favorite boys. Weirdly, though, the young men don't seem to mind. In fact, one of them laments that he's never been chosen to be "bad-touched." When one quips, "Are we scarred for life?" another quickly retorts, "I certainly hope so." So if it's hysteria you're looking for, you've come to the wrong movie.
Dividing the Gay Audience: The thing is that every adult male teacher in this movie is either willfully involved in the act of low-key seduction of his male students or allows himself to be tempted by the aggressive advances of the most sexually mature of the bunch, or is seen in later life "struggling" to keep his hands off his charges. Is that a "thing" in England, or are we to believe that every gay male school teacher on earth is out to hump cute teenage boys? Because it's not exactly a diverse bunch here. But that's a minor point. It's well-acted and has more ideas in one minute of film than most have in their entire running time.