Myths about
girls schools abound: They're hotbeds of lesbianism and anarchy that play
footsy with Our Social Values. The latter is true 行 while only one of my
former classmates, a doctor, wears a tie to work (nurses swoon around her),
in school we all behaved as we pleased, without worrying about how we looked
to boys.
Oliver Parker and Barnaby Thompson's St. Trinian's lies somewhere between my high school and the
(regrettably coed) school of Kamogawa Tsubame's comic-book series Macaroni
Horenso, a monument to pop surrealism
that ran in Shonen Champion magazine
from 1977 to 1979. Both Macaroni Horenso and St. Trinian's begin as an innocent arrives. In Macaroni, the 16-year-old Soji (named after
pretty-but-straight swordsman legend Okita Soji) is promptly introduced to
his roommates Kindo-chan and Hizakata-san. In St. Trinian's, 16-year-old Annabelle (Talulah Riley) drives up
with her sleazoid art dealer father Carnaby Fritton (Rupert Everett), who
argues for a "family discount" on tuition with his sister,
headmistress Camilla (also Everett).
Kindo-chan prefers to be called "Maid Kindo" and is versed
in all things motherly and housewifely. Hizakata-san never takes off his
Ray-Bans, even in the bath. They have repeated high school so many times
that they are actually aged 40 and 25, respectively. (Dropping out was not
even a possibility 行 what country
did you think this was!?) Together, they turn their classroom into a lunar
wasteland, a South Pacific jungle or a concert arena, as nonsensical dialog
churns on like a punk anthem circa '77, to the torment and chagrin of
Professor Kuma.
Annabelle's initial assessment of her new school as "Hogwarts
for punkies" also turns out to be an understatement and anachronism.
The ones with multicolored hair and pierced eyebrows are not Goths, they
are emos; There are nerds, demolition
experts and "Posh Totties" 行 no, they aren't really posh, they
believe in feminine wiles and using them to serve their aspirations. The
girls sell moonshine with the help of Flash (Russell Brand, looking exactly
the same as he did in Bedtime Stories)
and use spiked hockey sticks to score goals in an inter-school match.
Enter Geoffrey Thwaites, the minister of education played by
perpetually repressed Colin Firth. His mission is to clean up the
underachieving institution and turn it into an 80-mpg efficiency machine,
only he doesn't know that the clunker is run by his old flame Camilla. Drama 行 comedy, that is 行 ensues.
Everett's
masculine physiognomy translates to a matronly figure in drag, which he
uses to his comic advantage. His Camilla is alternately funny and caring;
she isn't just about chain-smoking in pink velour sweatsuits, she also
paints criminally good copies of Dutch masters and encourages Annabelle to
box her anger out. Everett brings a touching tenderness to the relationship
between his character and Geoffrey. Head girl Gemma Arterton (Agent Fields
in Quantum of Solace) is a dead
ringer for Macaroni's Girl A:
charismatic in a black bob, down to her modified uniform (in Japan in the
'70s, the hems went downward with attitude). She is a natural leader in the
girls' bid to save their school from bankruptcy. Even the teachers and
staff are far from normal: The male art teacher poses nude himself.
The girls play their types to the hilt, which is the right thing to
do. Cliques and types are all crucial parts of identity-forming. I don't
know what I'd have done without my six years of girls school. Sure, my
school wasn't run by an Elizabeth III. But you've never been to a girls
school.
