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United Kingdom · 2006
Rated R · 1h 49m
Director Nicholas Hytner
Starring Samuel Anderson, Dominic Cooper, James Corden, Richard Griffiths
Genre Comedy, Drama
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A class of bright and funny history students at a Yorkshire grammar school pursue undergraduate spots at Oxford or Cambridge. Bounced between their maverick English master and a young and shrewd teacher hired to up their test scores, the boys discover that there is more to the pursuit of learning than exams and grades.
Audiences coming cold to this largely faithful adaptation of Alan Bennett's clever but contrived classroom comedy won't be so wowed, given picture's irrevocably stagy feel. Nicholas Hytner's flat-footed direction doesn't help, nor do picture's younger cast members' over-rehearsed performances, although the seasoned thesps shine.
The History Boys is an erudite, sharply written film with consummate performances, but its origins on the stage are all too obvious.
Revved by the stage performances, the cast courses through the material with disciplined exuberance--especially the eight young actors at the center of the drama, many of whom have never appeared in a film before.
New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein
The movie is brilliant and infectious, much like Bennett's voice: English-deadpan but never snide, and generous to a fault.
New York Daily News by Jack Mathews
The play's most acclaimed performance - rotund Richard Griffiths as the closeted teacher Hector - is great in the movie, too.
Now seen for the first time in close-up, these "boys" are well past adolescence, which makes Bennett's sympathy for poor Hector a bit easier to take.
The Hollywood Reporter by Kirk Honeycutt
If you liked the play and the compelling ideas Bennett kicks around, the movie makes for an intellectually invigorating couple of hours.
Rolling Stone by Peter Travers
The film can't hide its stage origins, and in cutting almost an hour on the journey from stage to screen some resonance is lost. But Bennett's dialogue sparkles and skewers with killer wit. Dig in.
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
The current of intellectual energy snapping through the ferociously engaging screen adaptation of Alan Bennett’s Tony Award-winning play feels like electrical brain stimulation.
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