Set in 1934 on a remote island this English exclusive girl’s boarding school rears these bright but obnoxious girls to deal with the class-conscious society of the era. The focus of the story is on the diving team that has a hierarchy based on the girls ages and is led by the domineering Radfield who carries an enormous crush on their teacher Miss G. Not much older than her girls, this beautiful ex-pupil who, unbeknownst to her adoring charges, has in fact never left the walls of the school yet fills their impressionable minds with tales of her world adventures, which it turns out she has lifted straight from novels.
And then suddenly their rather cozy insular world is shaken up with the arrival of a new pupil, Flamma, a stunningly gorgeous Spanish aristocrats daughter, whose charm is matched by her worldliness. Radfield quite rightly takes umbrage against her presence as Miss G. is soon smitten with Flamma, and indiscreetly offers her the intimacy that poor Radfield always desperately wanted.
Even though the tension ratchets up a notch or two, this very sleight story fails to deliver the momentum it had hinted at in the beginning. It just seems to go nowhere. The passion is discreet and even the violence is quite tame. The Lord of the Rings moment I had kind of expected failed to materialize, and instead of a possibly exciting psychological thriller, we ended with just another pretty costume drama of unrequited love.
Eve Green (ex James Bond) makes for a striking Teacher, and the two leading girls show great acting talent, and it’s a pity the plot just let them down.
P.S. Released in the UK in 2009, it’s finally getting a very limited run in the US. The delay? My guess is that its really hard to know exactly who this wee odd movie will appeal too.
Labels: British, period drama
