Starter For Ten: February 23, 2007

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Ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to be clever, Brian Jackson confesses in voice over at the start of STARTER FOR 10. A working-class student from Essex navigating his first year at Bristol University, Brian (James McAvoy) has a lot to prove. While his hometown mates1 worry about him turning into a poncey wanker , Brian’s biggest concern is making the team for the long-running British television quiz show University Challenge. (The game show, which began in 1962 and is something like the UK’s answer to Jeopardy, pits four-member teams from posh universities against each other. “Starter” questions, worth ten points each, give the film its title.)

Amidst Tarts & Vicars5 dances, anti-Apartheid rallies, minging6 dorm rooms and puffs of marijuana smoke, Brian also finds himself romantically torn between two very different co-eds: ultra-fit7 blonde bombshell and University Challenge teammate Alice (Alice Eve), and thoughtful, politically-conscious Rebecca Epstein (Rebecca Hall in Christopher Nolan’s THE PRESTIGE).

With Margaret Thatcher’s economically depressed Blighty8 as a backdrop, and a killer, pitchperfect New Wave soundtrack—featuring music by The Cure, Wham!, Bananarama, Yaz, The Smiths, New Order, Tears For Fears, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Buzzcocks, and The Psychedelic Furs—in the foreground, STARTER FOR 10 is the great British teen 80s movie that never was. . .

It is also altogether delightful, with UK comedy sensation Catherine Tate co-starring as Brian’s steadfast mum, and McAvoy (THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE’S Mr. Tumnus the Faun) delivering the kind of charming, humorous performance that reinvigorates a genre. Though Brian Jackson knows everything, like all honest coming-of-age stories, STARTER FOR 10 is ultimately about its hero discovering the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

Directed by Tom Vaughan, based on the novel by David Nicholls, STARTER FOR 10 is produced by Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman and Pippa Harris and executive produced by Sam Mendes, Steven Shareshian, Nathalie Marciano and Michelle Chydzik Sowa.