St. Trinian's English Movie 2009
Cast And Crew
Starring... Colin Firth, Gemma Arterton, Lena Headey,
Mischa Barton, Rupert Everett,
Genre Comedy
Duration 1 hr. 40 min.
Director Barnaby Thompson, Oliver Parker
Producer Barnaby Thompson, Oliver Parker
Distributor Neo Classics Films Ltd Release
Date October 2, 2009 (limited)
Writer Jamie Minoprio, Piers Ashworth
Reviews
St. Trinian’s, the infamous school for ‘young ladies’ is once again facing dire financial crisis. The bank is threatening headmistress Camilla Fritton with closure. Her unorthodox doctrine of free expression and self empowerment is also under threat from new Education Minister Geoffrey Thwaits, an old flame of Camilla’s who is determined to bring discipline and order to the anarchic school. In true St Trinian style the girls are in a league of their own; smart, fearless and determined to defend the school they love to the end. They need to unite the warring girl gang cliques and come up with the cash fast to save the school.
Surprisingly enjoyable comedy with strong comic performances, lively direction and several decent gags.
What's it all about?
Rupert Everett (in full Camilla Parker-Bowles drag) stars as Camilla Frinton, headmistress of the infamous St Trinian's school for girls, which is facing two distinct problems: first, the bank is threatening St Trinian's with closure and second, the new Education Minister, Geoffrey Thwaite (Colin Firth) is determined to bring discipline and order to the anarchic school.
Fortunately, the resourceful pupils have a plan to save the school. Under the influence of cool head girl Kelly (Gemma Arterton) and new girl Annabelle (Talulah Riley), the girls (including Lily Cole, Tamsin Egerton and Juno Temple) come up with a plan to steal a famous painting and fence it to Camilla's ne'er-do-well brother (also Rupert Everett) with the assistance of charming spiv Flash Harry (Russell Brand).
The Good
Rupert Everett is extremely funny as Camilla and his romantic scenes with a remarkably game Colin Firth (there are countless jokes about Firth's career and he even reprises the Mr Darcy wet shirt shot) are priceless. There's also strong comic support from Russell Brand and Jodie Whittaker (as the dozy school secretary), while Talulah Riley and Gemma Arterton are both superb as the two lead girls.
Parker and Thompson maintain a lively directing style and a high gag rate, ensuring that even if one joke falls flat, there's another one right behind it. They've also been surprisingly successful in updating the franchise, with cliques consisting of Emos, Chavs and Geeks, as well as a crowd-pleasing cameo by Girls Aloud in school uniforms.
The strangest thing about the film is how tame it all is, despite a couple of risque jokes and drug references – there's not a hint of sex and the girls only make drugs rather than taking them.
In short, St Trinians is surprisingly good fun and certainly not the disaster it could have been (think Spice World). Worth seeing.
St Trinian's is the school for young ladies and it is once again facing dire financial crisis with the bank threatening closure. Headmistress Camilla Fritton is also in the firing line from the Education Minister as she espouses an unorthodox doctrine of self-empowerment and free expression. In order to save the school, the St Trinian's girls decide to put their differences aside and hatch a plan to come up with cash. The leaders of the gang, Kelly (Gemma Arterton) and Annabelle (Talulah Riley) decide that a heist is the only way forward, and so decide to steal Vermeer’s ‘Girl with the Pearl Earring’ painting from the National Gallery.
This ultra-glossy, twenty-first-century update of the original series of films about the anarchic student body of the titular ‘ladies school’ comes bounding off the screen like a feature-length ad for Top Shop. Out go any radical notions of female social upheaval and in come clumsy drug jokes, broad stereotypes and reams-upon-reams of thudding pop music. The lead performances from the young cast are generally weak (apart from an excellent Jodie Whittaker) and the script is a tiresome mulch of self-conscious cultural references. Not even a camp-as-Christmas turn from Rupert Everett as effete headmistress Camilla Fritton is enough to salvage this mess, which drifts aimlessly towards a tawdry heist finale that will only make sense to those with the ability to bump their own brain-patterns to the level of sub-moronic torpor. The one-dimensional, any-excuse-for-a-musical-montage direction does, admittedly, inject some much-needed zip into the proceedings, but in terms of a cultural legacy, this is one to file next to ‘Spiceworld: The Movie’.
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