- Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures
- Release Date: Nov 21, 2006
- Starring: Clive Merrison, Frances De La Tour, Richard Griffiths
- Summary: 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. (Fox Searchlight)
- Director: Nicholas Hytner
- Genre(s): Drama, Comedy
- More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
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Positive: 29 out of 32
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Mixed: 3 out of 32
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Negative: 0 out of 32
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100In The History Boys, as in all of Bennett's work, irony is what the characters live and breathe - and I mean irony in its truest sense, of using language to present opposite and often sly alternatives to accepted wisdom.
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The film version of The History Boys is a lesser thing, more fixed in space and time and rendered almost unbearably "cinematic" in patches by Hytner's gymnastic camerawork. Yet the ideas and feelings of the piece remain so rich that it almost doesn't matter.
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80The movie is brilliant and infectious, much like Bennett's voice: English-deadpan but never snide, and generous to a fault.
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60Audiences 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.
Score distribution:
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Positive: 16 out of 27
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Mixed: 3 out of 27
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Negative: 8 out of 27
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IgbyE.10
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MarkW.8Almost turned it off after the first 15 minutes but it really grew on me.
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ShannonP.7
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DanielB.3
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