Reviewed by Evelyn Hartogh

They drink, they party, they wear short skirts, but basically the naughty schoolgirls of St Trinian’s do not shock nor push any boundaries like they did back in the 1950s.  The new ‘updated’ St Trinian’s is a fun romp with lots of colour and excitement, but it fails to pack a punch.  The bootlegging, bomb-building students are pretty much the same as they were fifty years ago.  However, they no longer represent a rebellion against any social norms, nor are they inspirational avant-garde rebels like they were last century.

In the context of contemporary films about the violence and alienation in high schools today, such as Elephant and Bowling for Columbine, or even The Brady Bunch Movie, the nouveau belles of St Trinian’s are very mild and conservative bored little rich girls having a bit of a lark.  They still make booze in the chemistry lab, run scams here and there to profit themselves, show off the tops of their suspenders, and most of them have the fabulously uncombed hair that was so shocking in the fifties.   While the schoolgirls in the original films rebelled against conservative, passive femininity in their wonderful independence and sexual confidence, the new film simply shows a regular group of schoolgirls who offer no challenges to current social standards.  The only real ‘update’ to St Trinian’s seems to be a step backwards into conservative homophobia.

Famously, the original 1954 The Belles of St Trinian’s (on which this new film claims to be based) was resplendent in lesbian subtext, such as Principal Millicent Fritton’s explanation that the school was for ‘outdoorsy’ girls who like lots of exercise and fresh air, in other worlds ‘tomboys’, in other words lesbians.  Millicent outs herself early on, recalling she founded the school with her partner Frida.  At a time when women’s femininity entailed modest, silent subservience to a male breadwinner, the 50’s wild schoolgirls short skirts and economic independence were tantalisingly inspirational to a whole generation of women desperate to enjoy the same level of freedom as men.  Today’s belles of St Trinian’s care more about impressing the boys rather than competing with them on a level playing field, and this makes the film deeply disappointing.

Rupert Everett, in drag as Principal Camilla Fritton and her dodgy art dealer brother Carnaby, does a noteworthy reprise of the roles of Principal Millicent Fritton and her dodgy bookie brother Clarence that were made famous by Alastair Sim in the original films.  However, despite Everett’s wonderful comic timing and his hilariously unsubtle parodies of Camilla Parker Bowles and the Queen, his role unfortunately relies heavily on homophobic and transphobic humour.

Colin Firth as the Education Minister, is the long lost love of Camilla (Everett) and their love scenes inspired tedious bigoted homophobic groans from the schoolgirls invited to the media preview.  Firth’s character makes numerous references to his Pride and Prejudice Mr Darcy role (and its reprise in the Bridget Jones’s Diary films) complete with a slow motion wet shirt sequence.  The dubious humour of his romance with Camilla relies on the fact they are both men and this is played out to encourage transphobia, homophobia and shockingly bigoted ‘revulsion’ from the audience.  This use of ‘discrimination’ comedy makes the film deeply conservative at best, and does nothing to carry the torch of anarchy and social rebellion that the film claims to promote.

Gemma Arterton makes a cool Head Girl, but as the supposedly tough Kelly she is still far too ‘nice’ to really be in the sprit of the original St Trinian’s.  Even the scenes of a hockey match between St Trinian’s and another girls school demonstrate that, compared to other high schools, St Trinian’s is no longer a force to be reckoned with, nor are they as ruthless or rebellious as they once were.  While the major change to the schoolgirls is their division into sub-cultural groups such as the Emos, Posh-Totties, Chavs and Geeks, does make it somewhat modern, these categories lose all political significance and are dumbed down into simply groups of girls with different fashion choices.

The saddest part of this film is how much it misses the mark of offering an alternative social vision.  The schoolgirls of St Trinian’s are very much like the bored rich girls of today, they drink and take drugs, have sex, and believe they are ‘rebelling’ while they perpetuate the conservative bigotry of a heterosexist consumerist culture.  While the new St Trinian’s does at least make a couple of lesbian references, these are confined to the female schoolteachers themselves, which makes the film even more whitewashed and absurd since everyone knows that same-sex boarding schools are always a hot-bed of same-sex romance.  This film offers an offensive ultra-conservative insult to the spirit of the original St Trinian’s films and if not for Rupert Everett’s phenomenal comic effort (in spite of a lousy script) it would completely bomb.

For a ‘new’ take on an old film, St Trinian’s shows nothing ‘new’, offers no challenges or social comments, and provides absolutely no inspiration to today’s schoolgirls, except perhaps to say that today one can risk nothing and be like everyone else but still believe one is rebellious and an individual.  St Trinian’s suggests that anarchy has become nothing but a consumer item, devoid of politics and progressive philosophy, and the worst part is, nobody seems to care.


St Trinian’s
(2007)

Director: Oliver Parker, Barnaby Thompson
Screenplay: Ronald Searle (original cartoons),  Piers Ashworth, Jamie Minoprio, Nick Moorcroft, Jonathan M. Stern
Cinematography: Gavin Finney
Editing: Alex Mackie
Score: Charlie Mole
Costume Design: Rebecca Hale, Penny Rose
Cast includes: Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Gemma Arterton, Russell Brand, Lily Cole.