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!

Article

Culture

Film & TV

Politics

13 March 2025

6 min read

Fear of the news means it needs to change

Here's how to rethink reporting.

Steve Dew-Jones

Steve is news director of Article 18, a human rights organisation documenting Christian persecution in Iran.

A news cameraman holding a camera, stands back to back to a police officer.

Waldemar on Unsplash.

Several non-journalist friends have told me over the past few years that they have started to disconnect themselves from the news - in some cases entirely - so wearied have they become by the incessant gloom of our reporting.

Meanwhile, new research from the Reuters Institute has found that people have been “turning away from the news” consistently across 17 countries tracked over the past decade - from the US to the UK, Japan to Brazil.

And one of the primary reasons, the researchers discovered, is the “fatigue and overload” of negative news.

Another factor was the declining trust in the media, which has again been something I have heard consistently from friends in recent years, with many telling me they are constantly reassessing who they turn to for news.

Perhaps that is only healthy, but both trends suggest to me that there may be a problem with the way news currently is, and the effect it is having on us.

One of the most regular examples of the “bad news” we journalists tell is the reporting of terror attacks, but whenever I hear news of an attack - whether here or elsewhere - I think not only of the immediate victims and their loved ones, but also those who may soon become victims by association.

Perhaps the most obvious recent example here in the UK was the case of the Southport stabbings, a shocking incident that led to understandable - albeit misguided - outrage.

As soon as it emerged that a “foreigner” - or at least someone who sounded like they might be a foreigner - was responsible, many jumped to the conclusion not only that he was an Islamist but also probably an asylum-seeker, and an illegal one at that.

It later transpired, of course, that the 17-year-old who carried out the terrible attack had been born and raised in Wales - to “Christian” parents, no less. So not an asylum-seeker, after all, nor even a foreigner; and even though it later became clear that he had downloaded disturbing content including from Al-Qaeda, his inspiration seemed to come from a wide range of sources.

Here was another example, our prime minister told us, that showed “terrorism had changed” and was no longer the work only of Islamists or the far-right but of “loners” and “misfits” of all backgrounds, common only in their sadism and “desperat[ion] for notoriety”.

And yet, in the Southport case and no doubt many others, by the time the killer’s background and likely motive finally became clear, the horse had already bolted.

In that particular case, the reaction was especially extreme, with mosques and refugee hotels attacked as part of widespread rioting. But even when there are no riots after such an attack, there can surely be little doubt that the minds of the wider British public will have been impacted in some way by the news.

For some, perhaps the primary response will be increased fear - in general but also perhaps especially of those different from themselves. For others, on top of fear, might they also feel increased hatred, or at least mistrust?

And such feelings will surely only increase with every new reported attack, especially when the perpetrator appears to be someone new to these shores, and even more so, it would seem, if it is an asylum-seeker.

To ignore the reality that many attacks have been carried out by asylum-seekers in recent years is to ignore reality. But for those of us desperate not only to prevent the further polarisation of our society but also to protect the many legitimate refugees who wouldn’t dream of committing such attacks, what can be done?

Perhaps it’s only because I’m a journalist, but in my opinion one major thing I think could help arrest the current trend would be for us to rethink the way in which we do news in general.

Not in order to mislead the public or pull the wool over their eyes - if bad things keep happening, they must be reported, as must the identities of the perpetrators, as well as any trends in this regard - but by way of providing the necessary balance and context.

For example, by looking into what percentage of attacks - here or elsewhere - have been committed by Islamists, foreigners, or asylum-seekers; or considering what percentage of the total population of such groups the attackers represent, and how this compares to statistics regarding other groups.

The question we journalists - and those who read our words - need most to ask is whether we are doing a good job of informing the public about the world they live in.

Might it also be helpful to undertake a general reconsideration of what constitutes news? Does, for example, bad news always have to reign supreme in the minds of those who curate our news cycle?

A decade ago, I had it in mind to create a new app or perhaps even news service dedicated to rebalancing the news, such that bad news stories wouldn’t outnumber the good. Many others have had similar ideas in recent years, and several platforms have been launched, dedicated to the promotion of “good news” stories. And yet one could argue that such platforms risk being as unrepresentative of reality as those that tell only bad-news tales. Can’t a compromise be found?

One of the first things you learn as a journalist, other than that sex sells, is that greater numbers of deaths, and especially those of children, always constitutes headline material. And one needs only to flick through today’s major news outlets to see that this practice remains almost universally upheld. But does it have to be so?

And why is it that some conflicts and injustices will make our headlines, while others won’t?

Take, for example, the Sudanese civil war or the recent beheading of 70 Christians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Why is it that these horrors don’t make our headlines, while tragedies in Ukraine or Gaza do? Who makes the call, and for what reasons?

Another long-established principle in journalism is to consider first and foremost who your audience is. So, for example, when writing for a British audience, to consider what might be of most interest to Brits. Are Ukraine and Gaza, for example, simply more relevant to British interests - in both senses of the word - than what is happening in the Global South? And even were that to be true, just because such principles of journalism are long-established, must they remain unchallenged?

At its core, journalism is about informing, so in my opinion the question we journalists - and those who read our words - need most to ask is whether we are doing a good job of informing the public about the world they live in.

And in my view, while a lot of good journalism is of course being done, the question of whether the public are receiving a representative picture of their environment is less clear.

Whether or not the best approach to redress the balance is to dedicate whole news services to telling good-news stories, there’s surely little doubt that such stories are chronically underreported.

And if our duty is not only to inform but also, by virtue of that, not to mislead, mightn’t it be argued that in failing to sufficiently well inform society about the real state of our world, we are in fact misleading them?

No-one wants to end up in a Soviet-style “paradise” in which murders are simply denied in order to maintain the status quo, but nor, surely, do we want to live in a world in which people become unnecessarily fearful and hateful towards others, in part because of the news we feed them.

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