Tagline: History. It’s just one bloody thing after another.
“The History Boys” tells the story of an unruly class of bright, funny history students in pursuit of an undergraduate place at Oxford or Cambridge. Bounced between their maverick English master (Richard Griffiths), a young and shrewd teacher hired to up their test scores (Stephen Campbell Moore), a grossly out-numbered history teacher (Frances de la Tour), and a headmaster obsessed with results (Clive Merrison), the boys attempt to sift through it all to pass the daunting university admissions process. Their journey becomes as much about how education works, as it is about where education leads.
Based on the play that won the hearts of Broadway audiences and garnered six Tony Awards this year, The History Boys follows an unruly bunch of sharp, talented but rough-edged British schoolboys whose worlds are changed forever when two teachers with opposing viewpoints on education engage in a battle to get them into Oxford and Cambridge.
It all begins at a small public boys’ school in industrial Northern England where an unprecedented eight students are about to pursue the ultimate British dream: to gain acceptance into one of England’s two legendary universities. Distracted by sex, sports and the chaos of growing up in the 1980s, the boys are helped, and sometimes hindered, in their quest by two teachers who are diametrically different in their methods.
New to the school is the slick Irwin, a recent graduate of Oxford who has been hired by the ambitious Headmaster to whip the boys into exam-ready shape with his aggressive focus on strategy and “spin.” Then there is the maverick literature teacher Hector, who thinks himself a fool yet breaks all the rules in trying to help the boys discover their own wisdom. As both teachers vie for the boys’ loyalty, minds, and even hearts, they impart vital lessons and reveal their own human flaws.
The History Boys (2006)
Directed by: Nicholas Hytner
Starring: Richard Griffiths, Clive Merrison, Frances de la Tour, Stephen Campbell Moore, Sacha Dhawan, Samuel Anderson, Dominic Cooper, Samuel Barnett, Penelope Wilton, Georgia Taylor
Screenplay by: Alan Bennett
Production Design by: John Beard
Cinematography by: Andrew Dunn
Film Editing by: John Wilson
Costume Design by: Justine Luxton
Set Decoration by: Joanne Woollard
Music by: George Fenton
MPAA Rating: R for language and sexual content.
Distributed by: Fox Searchlight Pictures
Release Date: November 21, 2006
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