The History Boys

When a 1980s class achieves the best scores ever at Cutlers' Grammar School for boys in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, the petty Headmaster (Clive Merrison), who craves the prestige like the parents, recruits a young Oxford graduate, Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore), to prepare them for the general entry exams for the world class universities of Oxford and Cambridge. He stresses that takes not just delivering what all schools prepare for, but, if they even really want to go, standing out by a different approach and perspective: surprising quotations and associations, the other side of the coin, witty phrasing. Actually good foundations were laid by the current staff, less by history teacher Dorothy Lintott (Frances de la Tour), a frustrated liberal feminist without actual impact, than by the enthusiasm-arousing Mr. Hector (Richard Griffiths) in General Studies, who gets their attention and makes them think through literature, open discussion, role-play, and performing declamation and song, at both of which the only Jewish (like the Muslim, fully integrated) boy, sensitive gentle gay David Posner (Samuel Barnett), excels. Alas, when the Headmaster learns that the caring, paternal Mr. Hector once innocently touched a boy's privates, he insists on a "graceful" early retirement, a personal drama with surprising twists in the end. Meanwhile, the irresistible class flirt, Dakin (Dominic Cooper), skilfully tests all borders including his and Irwin's sexual orientation, and all consider for what they really aspire and care, in studies and life.