Roedy Green The movie is about a group of British boys cramming for university history entrance exams. Their teachers assigned to tutor them, randomly talk about life.The dialogue is unrealistic. The boys continuously quote poetry and talk in highly abstract ways. It is often witty.The boys like to sing and reenact movies and plays. These scenes are the most fun.There are four gay characters one old and three young. The movie treats them sympathetically, even if some of the characters in the movie do not. There is no sex, not even implied.The tension comes from resisting the phoniness of playing the game of psyching out the examiners

Kirpianuscus no doubt - it is more stage than set. but this is one of virtues. because, in strange manner, it does it alive. the acting, the dialogues, the tension - including the sexual tension - the characters who propose models and attitudes , show vulnerabilities and defines the small details who makes in the profound sense teaching. a film who has all - humor and clever script, the best actors and science to use the stereotypes in seductive manner. because it is more a film about dreams and self definition, about courage to give and to inspire the right manner to assume the life. sure, Richard Griffiths is great . but it is not a surprise. the good point is the wise balance between themes and portraits and styles. and the optimistic message. maybe, a film about school. but , more important, a film about freedom making.

lolliebutler In my opinion various characters in the movie can teach us various things. As a whole the history boys show us that with self belief and determination you can indeed persevere and achieve your goals. Dakin personally displays our an adolescents feelings are so pure yet so vulnerable, he is immediately drawn in by Irwin and this ends up causing him to question his sexuality. We as educators need to remember that this is the stage where affection for the opposite / same sex starts to develop and should provide guidance and not judgement. Hector also falls in to this topic as he almost corrupts the boys judgement due to him bribing them with a lift home, but you end up seeing that this was a innocent act of loneliness on his part. Every character causes you to feel some kind of emotion for them and I really enjoyed that aspect of the movie.

Apologi Many people seem to condemn this movie on a value basis as homophilic propaganda. I personally am a religious conservative opposing gay marriage, but nevertheless recognize this as a quality film.What I most enjoyed in this movie were the multiple intellectual discussions on the philosophy of history, i.e. what "history" in its essence is. Having done academic work with the history of ideas many questions and different types of approach were familiar to me from the Academy. Some people find the intellectual banter of the boys, laced with absurd situation humor, untenable, but I can personally testify, that a lot of wordplay like this takes place at academic circles when there are enough people immersed in certain discipline around. It is rare to find this at a regular high school, because usually one class carries only a couple of persons destined to humanistic studies on university level. But the setting of the film was in my view just to explain, what might happen, when such rare occurrence takes place among youngsters.The second point, which many viewers condemned as unrealistic was the strong sexual tone of the film. Now I do agree, that the film promotes a homosexualist agenda, but does that make the portrayal unrealistic? Yongsters coming at age are actually very much brimming with their sexuality, and it is not a rare thing they come up with direct proposals to their teachers. Been there, had the wisdom to decline, but the scenes between Dakin and Irwin are something that in my opinion is fairly common at least in heterosexual relations, as girls are exploring the limits of the power of their sexuality on an authority figure. Now what I do find justifiable in the criticism of the film is, whether the same dynamic applies to homosexual youth, as in their case the recognition and expression of one's orientation might be a much more difficult progress. In this I am no expert to comment, but at least in a heterosexual setting the same dynamic is realistic and in my opinion it is a strength of the film as a piece of art to explore this very dynamic, in spite the society might wish to pretend it does not exist. Is it not a marker of quality art that it explores issues of human nature which are difficult to touch and would be wished away by many in other forms of public discussion? There is of course also the question whether it is believable, that the two best history teachers of the movie happen to be gay. One can of course see this as an attempt to show homosexualism in an idealized light. However, I do have a few friends who have done graduate studies at Oxford, and in their account the old universities indeed do have a sizable number of eccentric gay persons in their faculty - some of whom are also using their position to get in the pants of the younger scholars. It is contemptible that such things happen, but again I make the point, that it is the task of art to show humanity as it is. In spite of the fact that I find homosexual sex in general and especially adult teachers fondling younger boys quite repulsive, in my opinion as a Christian it is important also to see the redeeming qualities of each person. The movie shows us, that neither Hector nor Irwin have had an easy life: they are no idealized romantic subjects, but have been forced to descend to objectible measures to get even one touch from the objects of their longing, or to repress their sexuality, both condemned to a loveless life. However, especially Hector has come into terms with his situation through art and poetry, an objective quality which we can recognize in him. This recognition is not an approval of his deeds, but a recognition of that persons are more complex than just carriers of sexual identities, which should be a think to keep in mind amid all the cultural wars that tend to make everything either glorified of horrified.