Another Country

I usually watch movies at night, when it's good and dark like a theater, but sometimes it's nice to watch movies in the afternoon. Today was such a day, the movie being Another County, a 1984 film adaptation of Julian Mitchell's play by the same title. The movie centers around Guy Bennett (Rupert Everett), a student in snobby and rigid 1930s-ish English public school. He and his friend Tommy Judd (Colin Firth) are rather outcasts, Bennett for not being discreet about his being gay and Judd for being a devout Marxist. Bennett aspires to be a "God"-- a member of the school's elite. I don't want to give it all away, but that's the premise.

I thought it was an excellent film. Like many people say, it has beautiful photography. Unlike some people say, I only struggled with the English accents a couple of times. I liked Bennett and Judd's characters a lot, and I though Rupert Everett and Colon Firth gave superb performances portraying them. I've seen them together before in The Importance of Being Earnest, which was also happens to be a very good film, which also happens to be a very good play, which happens to be an Oscar Wilde play, which increases its win points substantially. I also "visually sniped" (as my brother would say) Cary Elwes (i.e. "Westley? Westley, is that you?" Princess Bride fan, much). Elwes played James Harcourt, the object of Guy's affections. All the actors were so young! I always think its neat to see actors when they're young, because you can see how they've changed and how they're the same.

While it's not exactly a feel-good movie, I thought it was really interesting to see the hypocrisy and cruelty-- not to mention prime snobbery-- of (most) English public schools at that time. It was an awfully oppressive school. Near the end, Judd gives one of the Gods a good speech about how the boys oppressed by the system grow up to be the fathers that maintain it [cite Wikipedia on that last bit]. That was one of my favorite parts, along with Guy and James having a rare peaceful moment in one of the school boats and all of Judd's clever Marxist ranting. Come to think of it, the whole movie was my favorite part. I think it's a film definitely worth watch, so if you find yourself at a loss next time you're searching for a flick, keep Another Country in mind.