Tom Brown's Schooldays (2004)

Historical brutality?

This is a very well made film and probably historically correct as far as the private (public) school system was concerned but it is hard to watch the cruelty and brutality towards the younger boys. Alex Pettyfer is excellent as the young Tom Brown but he is continually "beat up" by the system of older sadistic students and disconnected teachers. He does stand up to it all and triumphs at the end, but at what cost? The saddest was the torture of a sensitive new student who never really recovers. It reminded me too much of Junior High and what a scar it can leave on you. Historically correct but disturbing. July 31, 2007

Faithfully presented

I enjoyed this version of Tom Brown. Stephen Fry portrays the compassionate schoolmaster, who attempts to reform Rugby House. A faithful adaptation of the novel. June 27, 2007

Best version yet

I have seen all the versions available of this story, and feel that this is the finest version yet produced. I enjoyed it much more than the BBC "Materpiece Theatre" series which is much longer. Usually, I prefer a more detailed story, but something did not appeal to me with the "Masterpiece" version. I have a DVD copy from England acted by John Howard Davies & Robert Newton. This is the highly acclaimed version by most from 1951. I guess the appealing qualities about the newest version are the music and filming, and most of all, the acting done by Alex Pettyfer (Tom), Stephen Fry (Dr. Arnold) and Joseph Beattie (Flashman). Supporting roles by Dane Carter (Tadpole) and Harry Michell (East) are also excellent. I recommend this new edition to all interested, especially over the 1971 "Masterpiece Theatre" version. April 30, 2007

Not a mini-series but a mini-version of Thomas Hughes' school novel

"Tom Brown's Schooldays" was originally published in 1857. Thomas Hughes had attended Rugby School, an English public school for boys from 1834 to 1842, but it seems the title character was based on his older brother George. The book is considered the first in the genre of school novels, spawning a host of imitations during the Victorian era, the most successful of which would be the Harry Potter novels of the 21st century. The BBC did a mini-series version of "Tom Brown's Schooldays" in 1972, where as this 2005 television adaptation by ITV runs only 93 minutes. I was going to say that this was by far the shortest BBC literary adaptation I had ever seen, but it turns out it was by ITV.

The relative short length of this production is especially interesting since it omits the chapters at the start of the novel dealing with the childhood of Tom Brown in his home in the Vale of White Horse. There young Tom spends days riding his pony and leading a happy, carefree existence, before being sent to the living hell of his schooldays. Instead, the script by Ashley Pharoah takes the two major stories that make up the actual school days, Tom being bullied by Flashman and Tom being told by Dr. Arnold to look after young George Arthur, and weaves them together instead of having them comprise separate parts of the story. So in this version Tom Brown (Alex Pettyfer) shows up at Rugby School and immediately becomes the target for the bullying Flashman (Joseph Beattie, and, yes, this is the character that George MacDonald Fraser made the "hero" of his "Flashman" historical novels). Meanwhile, headmaster Dr. Thomas Arnold (Stephen Fry) is trying to reform the rowdy school into a more Christian place, insisting that he will take the students at their word, just like he would a grown man, a policy that Flashman will sorely put to the test.

The conflict between Tom and Flashman is at the heart of this version, featuring an escalation of effronteries by the older boy that exceed what is in the novel. Flashman's big crime in the novel was to get exceedingly drunk, and Pharoah's script comes up with bigger and badder things in this version to expedite the villain's demise. The problem is that while I like the way the script makes Flashman's bullying a lot more threatening to a contemporary audience, the twist regarding George Arthur (Harry Smith) changes the ending way too much. Instead of thinking of the lessons that young Tom Brown has learned from his schooldays, I am watching the final credits wondering if this is supposed to be an implicit rejection of George Arthur's Christian idealism. Just because I appreciated some of the major changes in the story does not mean that I do not think there are certain lines you should not be crossing over, and I have to round down because of the line this one crosses at the end.

Young Pettyfer does not have to do much as Tom beyond reacting to the indignities heaped upon him by Flashman and the others and coming to the defense of Tadpole (Dane Carter) and other younger classmates who are the prey of the older bullies. Beattie plays Flashman with great relish, both when he is bullying the little boys and when he lies right to the face of Dr. Arnold. The key performance is that of Fry, who does a nice job of playing restrained anger when he finally lowers the boom on Flashman. My favorite scene is when the good doctor learns a lesson in irony as to what happens when you believe a liar and do not believe someone who is telling you the truth. But primarily "Tom Brown's Schooldays" is about a bully getting what is coming to him, and I hope the kid who terrorized my life when I was the same age as Tom got his own comeuppance sooner or later. At the very least, I would like to believe that Hughes is completely right on that score. April 11, 2007

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