The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

I found THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE a surprisingly unpleasant little film that feels dated in a bad way. The setting is Edinburgh, where the prim and proper Miss Brodie - played by Maggie Smith with an exemplary Scots accent - attempts to teach her female pupils about life and love in order to ready them for the world. Unfortunately, much of the running time is hampered by the interventions of an extremely sleazy art teacher, played by Robert Stephens. Scenes in which he paints one of his pupils in the nude (Pamela Franklin, the child actress from the likes of THE INNOCENTS) and then proceeds to cavort with her feel deeply dodgy when seen with modern eyes and I found his character's behaviour unforgiveable. The rest is meandering, painting portraits of all-too-cold characters, failing to make any of them likeable, Smith included, and watchable only for a few old hands (Gordon Jackson, Celia Johnson) in support.

When Miss Brodie talks to her girls, she has an agenda. That is to recreate herself. She has established what she feels are the necessities to succeed in the world. There is one student in particular who exhibits that which she is preaching. The kicker, of course, is that if she is another Jean Brodie, she doesn't need anyone else. And this begins to happen. Unfortunately, the other girls don't have the where-with-all to be what she wishes. They begin gravitating toward the girl and away from their teacher. But this is about the wonderful performers, Maggie Smith in particular. Like my favorite, Anthony Hopkins, her performances are stellar and this, for some, is her best. Another star of the movie is the school and the 1930's setting. Her ideas predate what we believe today.

A headstrong young teacher (Maggie Smith) in a private school in 1930s Edinburgh ignores the curriculum and influences her impressionable 12 year old charges with her over-romanticized world view.Maggie Smith was singled out for her performance in the film. Dave Kehr of Chicago Reader said that Smith is "in one of those technically stunning, emotionally distant performances that the British are so darn good at." Yes, but what about Pamela Franklin? I think it is a shame she ever quit acting, as she is by far one of the best actresses of the 1970s and 80s.It is interesting to see how little Maggie Smith changed over 30 years, and how the school in this film could just as easily have been Hogwarts.

Maggie Smith does a great job. that is the start point for judge her character who is only one of many old ladies searching impose their interior world to the students. Jean Brodie is fascinating for the predictable fall. her principles, her naivety, her don quijotism , fake virtues, strange values and idealism are pieces from a portrait who defines not only a specific character but a type of teacher who hopes transforms the children in his clones. and that does interesting the film. the selfish, the drops of Madame Bovary, the impact of truth, the lost of refuges, the revenge of hypocrisy. a film who could be part from one of the works by Tennesee Williams, it reflects , with more accuracy , a slice of school life who is not always the same from Mister Chips or The Emperor's Club.