Review

Culture

Education

7 September 2023

6 min read

Back to school on the big screen

It’s back to school for many. Yaroslav Walker picks his favourite films capturing the friendship, the drama, and the expectation of school life and beyond.

Yaroslav Walker

Yaroslav is Vicar of Christ Church, Hampstead.

School students walk across a playground confidently talking and laughing with us

The History Boys.

BBC Films.

The summer is coming to an end, the last BBQ embers are sputtering to sleep, the weather…appears not to have been told, at least in London! Sweltering! Most importantly of all, our children are back to school, nursery or college. In light of this momentous time of year here are my top five back to school film choices, one each for the last five decades, and some honourable mentions.

1970s - American Grafitti

A teenage couple dressed in 1950s clothes sit on a kerb in deep conversation.

Charles Martin Smith and Candy Clark in American Graffiti

American Graffiti isn’t just a lovely piece of nostalgia now, it was back then. A misty-eyed look back at 60s Americana, this film is packed with slicked-back hair, classic cars, diners with roller-skating waitresses, and the complexities of teenage romance. Four friends meet on the last day of summer to experience the joys of a California evening one last time before two of them jet off to college ‘back East’. Curt is unsure about his future and is even considering staying in his hometown. Steve is hubristically thrilled about the prospect of fleeing his humdrum life and even shedding his loving girlfriend for new conquests. Terry is insecure and simply desperate to prove he is as good as everyone else, and Milner is the older friend who never left town and is a local-legend drag-racer. Over the course of a long night they go their separate ways, have adventures, and finally find some closure to their ongoing anxieties: one finds new confidence, another begins to take risks, another learns to be happy with his lot, and Milner wins a drag race…oh, an learns the genuine happiness that can be found in adult responsibility. It's too long, but it is a lovely atmosphere to meander about in, and is edited superbly so it never really drags. With superb performances and a soundtrack bursting with 50s and 60s hits, this is well worth a watch.

1980s - The Breakfast Club

Five glum students perch on stools in school room.

Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, and Anthony Michael Hall in The Breakfast Club.

Well what else could it have been!? In many ways the film set the classic pattern of US High School living (which did and sometimes still does inform UK attitudes) and the High School movie. John Hughes didn’t invent these archetypes and wasn’t the first to put them on celluloid, but he was the master of crystallising them. The Breakfast Club presents an all-day detention that just so happens to have a representative from every social caste of the High School system: Andrew the jock (Emelio Esteves), Brian the nerd (Anthony Michael Hall), Allison the weirdo (Ally Sheedy), Claire the popular girl (Molly Ringwald), and Bender the burnout (Judd Nelson). These five kids have nothing in common but their dislike of the domineering Vice-Principal (Paul Gleason was born for this role!)…OR DO THEY!? Whereas American Graffiti explored the process of maturing into adulthood and the taking charge of one’s sense of self (with a background hum of Vietnam paranoia and the end of golden Americana days), The Breakfast Club is much more forthright in demonstrating just how difficult being a teenager is. These kids don’t need help ‘growing up’, if anything they need to be allowed to be kids. Over the course of the day their defences break down and they learn that each of them has expectations and pressures that seem overwhelming, and grown to have genuine respect and compassion for each other. A script that is sometimes on-the-nose and prone to soliloquy is saved by the sheer bravura of the performances. A go to comfort film, that will always be iconic. Any film which ends with Simple Minds is a 5 star affair for me.

1990s - The Faculty

Two students walk down a school corridor, one looking away.

Elijah Wood and Jordana Brewster in The Faculty.

We move to slightly scarier fare with the 90s. The Faculty asks the question you were all asking…what if Invasion of the Bodysnatchers took place in an American high school? The answer is subtext; a lot of subtext and allegory. You know, when you’re a teenager, everything can seem quite tough. The world can seem like it's against you. It can seem like everyone you know has changed overnight and you’re lost in a sea of hostile faces. It can seem like a parasitic alien is using your school as a beachhead for a planetary takeover. The Faculty is cinematic junk-food and unapologetically so. It is camp and silly and fun. It takes those Hughesian archetypes, puts them on steroids, and then throws them into a plot joyfully riffing on the most classic sci-fi and horror tropes - all held nicely together with a quip-filled Kevin Williamson screenplay. An underrated Robert Rodriguez directorial effort which shows that he can work well across genres, and an excellent opportunity to see early performances from Josh Hartnett, Elijah Wood, Jon Stewart, and…wait…is that Usher in that film!?

2000s - The History Boys

Yes, we move to British shores at last. Alan Bennett’s stage-play is brought to beautiful cinematic life by original director Nicholas Hytner, who has an excellent track record of translating Bennett’s work from stage to screen. It’s another flash of nostalgia (which all such films are, as adult writers and directors look back to their own school days and teenage angst and adventure) which transports the viewer to 1980s Sheffield. A group of friends at the local Grammar School have all done very well in their A Levels and are now put to the task of preparing for the Oxford entrance exams. All are lovers of History (well, maybe not Rudge) and have received an enviously eclectic education in the full gamut of culture from the eccentric and long-suffering Hector. Like all the films above, The History Boys explores the challenges of adolescence, but with a specific focus on ‘doing well’ in a particularly British way. Sporting excellence or popularity aren’t the measure of student success - Oxbridge is. The teachers don’t push the young men nearly as much as they do themselves, seeing a place at Oxford as the best form of advancement. The witty and moving script also touches on the issue of infatuation, attraction, sexual fluidity, and chaste reciprocity: Posner’s love for Dakin being encouraged only so far in some sort of mutually agreed stand-off, Dakin’s willingness to sleep with the substitute teacher Irwin, and (of course) Hector’s tradition of giving the boys a ride home on his motorcycle and…appreciating them aesthetically. Not easy subject matter, but written and directed and shot and performed with such sensitivity that you can’t help but fall in love with every character.

2010s - The Inbetweeners Movie

Two students look at each in in incomprehension.

Blake Harrison and Simon Bird in The Inbetweeners.

We end with crudity. Crudity and friendship and a booze-filled week in Crete. Lovers of the TV show (I was one) - which explored the trials and tribulations of four unpopular, unremarkable, and unfortunate teens at a British comprehensive school- were well served by this upgrade. TV comedies, like plays, rarely translate well; The Inbetweeners Movie is an honourable exception. Will, Simon, Jay, and Neil have come to the end of their school days and decide that they need one final hurrah before they go their separate ways. The proceeding 90 minutes is a torrent of drunken antics, foul-mouthed discourse, and crass toilet humour, all threaded together by hapless and fruitless sexual intrigue. 90 mins of that might seem like it would wear thin, but The Inbetweeners Movie is too kind-hearted to go stale (unlike its successor which was a genuinely squalid and unpleasant affair which had me questioning humanity). The four young men are so pathetic in the true sense of the word, that you can’t help but cheer for them. The overall message of friendship as a virtue that transcends the ups-and-downs of life give the salty humour a sweet edge. For a certain generation - mine - this might be the definitive British school movie.

Honourable Mentions

Grease

Sort of like American Graffiti…but better. I’m talking Travolta, I’m talking Newton-John, I’m talking songs that are bullet-proof! Graffiti is on the official list because it speaks to the many cultural and political undercurrents of the time…but Grease is so much more fun. If you can only see one of the two, see Grease!

Gregory’s Girl

Pipped by Breakfast because of the archetypes and Simple Minds, but probably one of the finest British rom-coms ever!

Mean Girls

Obviously. It's so fetch!

Review

Culture

Film & TV

Identity

Weirdness

9 December 2024

5 min read

Nightbitch’s metamorphosis of motherhood

In parenting the best things in life cost everything and nothing.

Krish Kandiah

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

A woman runs down a street at night accompanied by dogs

Amy Adams, running with the dogs.

Searchlight Pictures.

With birth rates declining, family breakdown increasing and what has been called an anxiety epidemic amongst children, a film about the raw challenges of motherhood – aimed at men as much as women - has to make us sit up and take notice.

Nightbitch does exactly that. Based on Rachel Yoder’s lockdown novel of the same name, it tells the story of a stay-at-home mum who, faced with the brutal realities of modern-day mothering, discovers her feral side – and transforms into a dog.

The film stars Amy Adams, an exceptional actress known for her roles in Arrival—a Denis Villeneuve masterpiece about aliens arriving on Earth—and other iconic films like Man of Steel (as Lois Lane), Enchanted (where she plays the central character), and Night at the Museum (as Amelia Earhart). In this film she delivers a powerful and deeply emotional performance as another alienated character, once a successful artist with a promising career, now reduced to part-parent, part-nightbitch.

The plot has echoes of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, where travelling salesman Gregor Samsa wakes up one day to find himself transformed into a giant insect. While Samsa’s arthropod transformation signifies entrapment and helplessness, Amy’s canine alter-ego provides a contrasting sense of liberation, offering her an empowering path of fierce self-assertion amid the demands of motherhood that have become overwhelming and suffocating. Nevertheless, both magical realism narratives use animal transformation to explore profound feelings of loss of identity, isolation and inequality - themes that are especially relevant in a time when pressures on families are immense.

Identity loss

Introducing herself to a group of new mothers, Amy’s character, who remains nameless throughout, says, “I used to be an artist.” Her inability to articulate who she is reflects so much: her loss of purpose, loss of social identity, loss of external validation, loss of financial independence, loss of cognitive functions, loss of self-worth. But it is not only her transformation into a dog that depicts this. There’s a poignant moment as the film opens when Amy bumps into the woman who has taken her old job. The stark contrast between their appearances—Amy looks pretty rough compared to her perfectly turned-out replacement—highlights just how different her life now is. It seems to me that this image of identity loss will resonate with all who face the struggle to reclaim oneself after a major life event, but especially with new mothers.

Isolation

Though Amy’s character is married, her husband is often absent, working long hours to provide financially. When he is home, he seems to want the pre-motherhood version of his wife, engaging only in the lighter aspects of parenting while avoiding the ongoing challenges. This dynamic leaves Amy’s character feeling alone and disconnected from her husband. Not only that, Amy’s initial attempts to connect with other mothers at her child’s nursery fall flat. Although they share the bond of motherhood, she finds their conversations unfulfilling. Similarly, when she reconnects with her old work friends, she discovers their lives have moved on without her, deepening her sense of displacement. She doesn’t fit in at home, at work, or in her community. She is trapped between worlds and is deeply isolated. Nightbitch offers a powerful antidote to Insta-perfect images of parenthood. The stark visual this film provides of the mother running away from the home at night as a dog challenges us to take seriously the need for mothers to escape claustrophobic societal expectations and to find autonomy, community and support.

Inequality

The third key theme explored in the film is the inequality between the male and female experiences of parenthood, as it portrays how much of the burden falls on women. Statistics only confirm the ongoing gender disparities, with women far more likely than men to reduce working hours and sacrifice their career prospects. Women disproportionately shoulder the long-term economic and professional consequences of parenthood, as well as the day-to-day duties of parenting. Add to this the emotional impact of isolation and identity loss, and the burden becomes almost insurmountable. This cumulative strain is faced by all those who are expected to seamlessly transition from independent individuals to selfless caregivers, often with little structural support. The film lays bare how these pressures, left unaddressed, can fracture not only individual lives but the entire stability of the family.

The film left me with questions:

Have I played my part?

As a father, watching this film prompted me to reflect deeply on my own family dynamic. Do we divide responsibilities fairly? Have one person’s dreams or ambitions been side-lined for the sake of the others? Do I overlook or undervalue what my wife does? What happened to the balance we originally envisioned and agreed upon as a couple?

Where is the support?

I also wondered about the structural support needed for those beginning their parenting journey. Then I remembered who facilitates tens of thousands of parent and toddler groups each week across the UK – the Church. Over a third of children under four attend these groups, translating to millions of parents and carers finding access to a lifeline – a welcoming environment and space for connection and mutual support. Do churches know what an important role they are playing? Do new parents know what is available to them there?

Is parenting only a burden?

While the film expresses brilliantly the challenges of parenthood, does it do so at the expense of expressing its joys? In my own experience parenting 30 children through birth, fostering, and adoption in almost the same number of years, I am still trying to work through the paradoxes. How can it be both overwhelming and overwhelmingly enriching. Both lonely, and connect us to the privilege of unconditional love? How is it that in parenting the best things in life cost everything and nothing?

At the London Film Festival Premiere that I attended, Amy Adams also reflected personally on the film:

“It gave me an opportunity to not only tell my relationship with my mother but also my sister and my friends…. There was a deep universality to the experience of motherhood but also the exploration of relationship inside of parenthood,, the relationship with husband. Everything just fell so true, relatable, and funny.”

In the end, Nightbitch is more than a dark, fantastical, funny tale of transformation; it’s a powerful mirror held up to modern family life that everyone can benefit from considering. It challenges traditional gender roles and expectations, inspires reflection on sacrifices and struggles, and provokes important questions about identity, privilege and partnership in the complex journey of parenthood and beyond.