Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

svetislaveva I whole-heartily concur with this particular reviewer on all points, having seen this film on several occasions over the years.However, on this occasion I am not sure why I cannot pay to stream this film to watch. As a matter of interest, for people who would like to pay to rent films, a new order seems to predominate this responsible way of watch films. I am at the moment, baffled.

Kessler1996 I found this film thoroughly unenjoyable. There was very little in this motion picture that I valued as "great cinema" - even using the word 'great' in a review of it seems excessively flattering. This film does not deserve to have such a word attributed to it.Set in the monotony of a Christian (so I assume) boarding school in 1931 England, any hope of a plot line is painfully non-existent and all events that occurred in this film agglutinated into one another like some atrocious melting pot. Or a car crash. Even at a running time of a mere 85 minutes, this film dragged on for far too long. Its two leading characters, Guy (Rupert Everett) and Tommy (a very young Colin Firth), are so boringly aspirational. Whether it be favouring Communism or infatuation over a fellow student, the two are so hopelessly dull and lose engagement over their audience relatively instantaneously. Their incessant soliloquies, dreaming of 'breaking free', swiftly become tedious and over-rehearsed. Some may see this film as "brave" for tackling the taboo of homosexuality in schools - especially in the early 1930s - and it may well have been, had it not been written so poorly. This is a sensitive subject yet it has not been treated that way, instead offering its audience indirect and misguided babble that neither satisfies nor interests. There is so precious little in this film that provokes any real thought as everything we are given is provided via insignificant segments of derailed trains of thought. It's like if someone gives you a joke and you don't realise that last sentence was the punchline. This is a film in which you will forever be waiting for a punchline. But, of course, it never comes.The only redeeming features are its beautiful, aristocratic settings amid the gorgeously vintage school building and Peter Biziou's very stylish cinematography. The sweeping camera movements devour the scenery and give us something wonderful to substitute for the plot-holed screenplay. This film is visually so much more impressive than its translucent story. Performances from semi-decent actors (at the time, at least), shoddy screen writing and misguided directing leave audiences unimpressed and dissatisfied with a hatefully deluded story that gets nowhere. This is a film that takes forever to say nothing.

sandover As far as I can tell, this sums up the lucid moral of the film, for to brush what the film actually contemplates is a risky business. Perhaps it achieves a discreet, demonstrative style in the scenes with the juniors, who may actually be the true Marxist, lilliputian counterweight to the ideological tirades, a style which is best allied with the performances' muted quality. As another reviewer shrewdly noted, one wonders if Colin Firth was ever a boy, that is how haunting a note he strikes, and with a sneer in his voice that maybe outshines even Michael Cane's, given his age. Rupert Everett turns a cautious, elegant performance; have we actually come to appreciate his distinct comic, perhaps signature Wildean, timing (well, better serving him in dramatic films)? But what will stay with me is the first amorous meeting between Benett and Harcourt, the first lines spoken and framed ideally by Elwes' flushed face and the - already enamored - slight twitches that betray him and convey a feeling of unspeakable beauty, a feeling of first -.Excuse me for being rhapsodic, excuse Cary Elwes for afterwards portraying an inexperienced, somewhat floppy youth (yet with a charismatic aura due perhaps to the fact that this is his first role, and with a platonic ivity that retains all the ambiguities of this kind of love). Forget the confusing matter of the film's ideological, biographical, theatrical or what stitches, see how it frames first love (we only come to see a handshake - has a handshake ever been so evocative? - and an embrace, not a kiss, nor a caress) in the premises and how wisely the director makes James Harcourt exit: he does not reciprocate Everett's distant salutation.If the film achieves an intuition, I think it is this grim one.Along with stating that thick makeup of Victorian proportions cannot convince the youthful body underneath to be old enough, or irrelevant enough in the U.S.S.R..

adkmilkmaid Forget the premise that homosexuality was the reason Burgess became a spy... a dubious conclusion. This movie is about ambition and how far one is willing to sacrifice one's principles to achieve it. The premise is explicitly stated in the opening frames with the voice-over from the aged Guy Bennett (fictionalized Burgess): "You've no idea what life in England in the 1930s was like. Treason and loyalty... they're all relative, you know. Treason to what? Loyalty to whom? That's what matters."It is the 1930s in a famous public school in England. Rupert Everett is the star turn as homosexual Guy Bennett, who longs to become a "God" (head boy) as a senior; Colin Firth plays the ing role of his best friend Tommy Judd, a devout Communist. It was the first film for each actor and they're both terrific right out of the box. While Guy (RE) is self-consciously theatrical (he refers grandly to a "tumescent archway") the dialogue between the two roommates is simple and real. In one scene Guy puts a quick move on Tommy (CF). He comes up behind Tommy, puts one hand over his eyes to pull his head back and with the other rapidly starts unbuttoning Tommy's pajama shirt.G: Alone at last! T: (bored/amused) Get OFF. G: I'll get you one day. T: No you won't. G: Yes I will. Everyone gives in, in the end. It's Bennett's Law. T: I won't give in. G: Well, you're not normal. (later) G: The reason everyone gives in in the end is they get lonely, doing it on their own. They long for company. T: Well, I don't. Not your sort, anyway. G: (insisting) That's why my mother is marrying this awful Colonel person. T: It couldn't just possibly be that she loves him? G: Out of the question. He's got one of those awful little mustaches. Ghastly. Almost as much of a loather as my father was. T: (amused) You mean even you would draw the line? G: Don't be revolting. He's a grownup. T: Of course. And it's all just a ing phase. G: Exactly. Just like you being a Communist. T: (sarcastic) Ha ha. G: (pause) Judd-- T: Hmm? G: You and your usherette -- T: What about her? G: Is it really so different? T: From what? G: BOYS. T: Well how would I know? I've only ever had a girl.The whole scene takes place as the boys are changing the linens on their bunks, going down to the laundry room, folding sheets, getting new ones. It's a great, understated scene. Tommy Judd is calmly not threatened by Guy's flamboyance and homosexuality. What resonates throughout the movie is the feeling of genuineness and honesty between these two in a cavernous school where everything is about power, leverage, and bullying.The struggles in the movie concern ambition vs. principles. Guy is determined to be a God. Will Tommy sacrifice his principles for his friend's ambition? Will he sacrifice them simply for his friend? Meanwhile will Guy sacrifice his boyfriend for his own ambition?T: I can't do it. I just cannot be a prefect. G: Why not? T: I do have my reputation, you know. G: (snorts) Your what? T: I'm a school joke, I quite realize that. But I am, don't you think, a respected joke? I do at least stick to my principles. People appreciate that. I abandon them now --and he winds himself up into a ionate speech about how people will think he's a fake, Communists are fake, and Stalin's a fake! He's almost in tears -- and then the head boy comes and he has to dive under a table (he and Guy are out of bed after hours)! Finally: G: (speaking of the head boy): My God, that man is really cracking up. T: Liberals always do under pressure. G: You know, you're a really hard man, Tommy. T: I've no time for him. He just wants a nice easy life and a nice easy conscience. And he's got no right to either.There are a lot more great exchanges. G: (sarcastically, about Communism) Heaven on Earth? T: (calmly) Earth on earth. A just earth.The friendship between Guy Bennett and Tommy Judd seems far more touching and real -- far more the heart of the movie -- than the sketched-in affair between Guy and James Harcourt, the character played by Cary Elwes.The whole production is filled with dewy, beautiful boys, starting with Everett, who at 24 is painfully gorgeous with his big eyes and ripe, petulant mouth. Firth at 23 has the sweetness of youth but otherwise is allowed to appear rather skinny and plain. (No eyebrows, hair standing on end, and 1930s round spectacles.) But his eyes glow with intensity and commitment. You totally believe his ion. Very tough to believe it was his first time in front of a camera.The movie itself is far from perfect. Some might think it slow and rather precious. But the messages about ambition and loyalty are timeless, and the Everett/Firth scenes are wonderful.