The History Boys

This is a movie I have to see this Christmas. The Globe & Mail’s Johanna Schneller (The Moviegoer) gives her magical movie moments of 2006 (“not my Best Of list ... more of a thank-you note.”) and has this to say about The History Boys:

Richard Griffiths dissects a poem in The History Boys. How do you dramatize what a great teacher does? Movies about the glory of education usually rely on big moments — teachers jumping onto desks, students speaking rapidly in a frenzy of intellectual revelation. Instead, this film has one exquisite scene in which Griffiths sits with a single student and mentions a few things about a poem. In the questions he asks and the gentle manner in which he asks them, you learn everything you need to know about this man, you absorb everything the movie is saying about teaching — and you actually feel what it is to learn, the quiet, private thrill of thinking.

’Nuff said?