Dirs. Oliver Parker & Barnaby Thompson, UK, 2007, 101 mins
Cast: Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Gemma Arterton
Review by Carol Allen
Sociologically this mild comedy is rather interesting in terms of reflecting how we've changed since 1954, when Frank Launder launched the human version of Ronald Searle's wicked cartoons on the world in "The Belles of St Trinian's" on which this is loosely based. Alastair Sim's majestically bosomed Millicent Fritton, the headmistress, has become the rather sexy and free thinking Camilla Fritton (Everett), who bears more than a passing resemblance to her royal namesake. Like its older sister, this movie features an im pressive line up of British talent, with Firth as Camilla's old flame Geoffrey Thwaites the Education Minister, who is determined to impose government standards on the rogue school, Jodie Whittaker as the school receptionist, dishing out upper and downer pills like sweeties, but only to the adults, not the girls and Russell Brand putting a contemporary sleazy spin on Flash Harry, (created by George Cole), who is the girls' link with the outside world for marketing their home made vodka and other nefarious activities.
Like the original though what makes St Trinian's are its pupils. No human beings could live up or rather down to Searle's evil little monsters but the girls here do their best, particularly Cloe and Holly Mackie as twin sisters with angel faces and inventive minds for mischief. And while this film perpetuates the same myth as its predecessor that grubby hooligan prepubescent schoolgirls miraculously become bosomy sexpots at around sixteen, the older girls in this are not sexualised objects as in the fifties but distinctly scary embodiments of girl power, most notably newcomer Arterton in her first film role as head girl Kelly and Talulah Riley as new pupil Amanda, who spends the first part of film looking justifiably scared stiff until she joins the older girls' gang and gets a makeover.
The story concerns a plot by the girls to steal the Vermeer portrait of Girl with a Pearl Earring to get the school out of its financial problems. It all culminates in the final of an inter school quiz show at the National Gallery. hosted by Stephen Fry playing himself, with the St Trinian's team cheating madly, while their sisters are doing the business in a most athletic way reminiscent of Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible combined with Catherine Zeta Jones's sexy shimmy under the radar in Entrapment. The film is full of allusions to other movies and teleplays, particularly around Firth, who has a wet shirt moment and is subject to the attentions of Camilla's pet dog Mr D'Arcy. And though there is an implied sexual encounter between Thwaites and Camilla, the film is clean as a whistle and rather unrealistically politically correct as far as the girls are concerned. Whereas in the fifties you couldn't see across the common room for the fug of fag smoke, the only smoking that goes on here is in the staff room. There are references to skunk and grass but no girl appears to indulge, nor do they touch the home brewed vodka. And apart from a mild flirtation between Kelly and Flash, those sexy schoolgirls appear to be saving themselves for marriage. Leaving aside the odd unkind practical joke and dirty tricks on the hockey field, these bad girls are really good girls trying to get out, who'll do anything for love of their alma mater.
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