St Trinian's (film)

St Trinian's is the sixth in a long-running series of films based on the works of cartoonist Ronald Searle. The first five films form a series, starting with The Belles of St Trinian's in 1954, with sequels in 1957, 1960, 1966 and 1980.

The 2007 release, coming 27 years after the last entry and 53 years after the first film, is a rebooting of the franchise, rather than a direct sequel, with certain plot elements borrowed from the first movie.

St Trinian's is an anarchic school for uncontrollable girls run by eccentric headmistress Camilla Dagey Fritton (the reboot continues the tradition, established with Alistair Sim in the original film, of casting a male actor who plays the female character in drag, with Rupert Everett inheriting the role)

Plot

The film opens with Annabelle Fritton being admitted to St Trinians by her aunt Camilla and her father Carnaby. She is terribly depressed, and after being knocked out of the way by a rush of girls, she meets head girl Kelly Jones who shows her around the school and introduces her to various cliques – Posh Totty (slang for gorgeous upper class girls), Chavs, Emos, Geeks, and First Years.

At her bed, Annabelle enquires what the girls are betting on. Kelly replies it's how long she'll last before cracking; a booby trap pours a gooey substance and feathers onto Annabelle, who runs to the showers. To see what she's made of, the girls set up cameras directly connected to YouTube, steal her clothes and all towels, and turn up the water temperature. Annabelle leaves the showers, only to realise that she is to run through the halls naked. Covering herself with her hands, she runs while the girls watch her on YouTube and laugh until Annabelle runs straight into a glass door and is knocked out for a few minutes. Two teachers walk past, slightly drunk, and remark uncaringly that she must be a new girl. When re-dressed, Annabelle phones Carnaby and demands to be taken home. Carnaby, however, pretends to lose reception as he is enjoying his freedom without Annabelle. In frustration, Annabelle shoots her mobile phone with a hockey stick across the hall until it hits a marble statue, smashing it into pieces. A teacher catches Annabelle in the act and instantly drafts her into the school's hockey team.

Flash Harry pays a visit to the school to deal bootleg goods, and makes a deal with the girls for some lab-made vodka. The last batch had side effects including blindness, paralysis, and death, all symptoms of methanol poisoning, indicating lack of care in distillation. He refuses to sell 'designer tampons' made by the Chavs, and is in the process of inspecting some drugs from the Emos when Kelly interrupts him. After a brief discussion requesting her to ensure several teachers pay up on bets they owe him, Harry asks her to go out with him which she refuses, saying "I don't mix business with pleasure."

A few days later, St Trinian hosts a hockey match against Annabelle's old school – their rivals Cheltenham Ladies' College, captained by Verity Thwaites, the school bully; Annabelle was her favourite victim. The girls give a hostile and violent welcome to their visitors and the match ends in a brawl; the St Trinian's matron is the referee and does not know the rules, so the girls cheat excessively. Eventually, there is a tie and the final shot is left up to Annabelle, but she cannot face Verity and is knocked out the way by a Cheltenham girl. Kelly takes her place, scores, and wins the game, accidentally knocking Verity out in the process.

During the match, Education Minister and Verity's father Geoffrey Thwaites comes to the school. He is planning to force it to raise its very poor standards, and to use it as a warning for other schools, but when he sees Miss Fritton he is slightly distracted from his purpose as he is reminded that he was once in love with her. However, all romantic feelings are lost when Fritton's dog, Mr Darcy, tries to mate with his leg. Geoffrey sneaks into the school and discovers many horrors, including a girl trapped in a tank of water in the art rooms and the illegal vodka, which is so strong that he instantly becomes tipsy after a slight taste. He accidentally knocks over a tank of biting ants, which crawl all over his shoes. Geoffrey is about to escape the school when he hears the Posh Totty coming in. He hides from them in their dressing room behind the racks of clothes. They are in their lingerie, talking on the phone and doing their hair and makeup. Geoffrey suddenly notices that the biting ants are crawling up his trousers, and he pulls them down. Suddenly his phone rings, causing the Posh Totty to discover him and throw him out the window into a fountain. He walks out in wet clothes, angered by what the school is like and the fact that his daughter is being taken to hospital because of a hockey puck hitting her, and thus declares war on Miss Fritton.

Celebrating their win over Cheltenham, the St Trinian's girls have a wild party. The morning after the victory party a banker stops by to inform Miss Fritton that St Trinian's owes the bank over half a million pounds, and if they don't get the money in four weeks the school will be shut down. Kelly and the head of the Geeks, Polly, realise this and Kelly tells the girls they must earn the money or else they will have to go to normal schools. Some days later through electronic spy cameras, the girls and especially Annabelle witness Carnaby attempting to broker a business deal with Miss Fritton. Carnaby wants to sell the school, that way they can repay the debt and split the profits. She refuses, inquiring about Annabelle. Carnaby reveals his true feelings about Annabelle – he does not like her and is not sure if he is really her father. Annabelle is upset, feeling betrayed, and goes to see Miss Fritton that evening. It is revealed that she is an excellent painter. Camilla helps make Annabelle feel better, helping her to release her anger and making her feel like part of the family by having a punching match with her.

With the help of Flash Harry, the girls decide to use crime to get the money and [Kelly's Idea] hatch a plan to steal the famous Girl with a Pearl Earring (or as Chelsea puts it, "Scarlett Johansson"). They organize a school trip to the London National Art Gallery where it is being held, to scope out the scene. After seeing how difficult it is going to be, they decide to use the TV quiz show School Challenge as a cover to get into the building. The finals of the competition would be filmed in the grand hall of the gallery.

As they make their plans, Thwaites decides to show the media exactly what St Trinian's is really like. However, the girls spot them and change around the classrooms until they are in perfect order. The only classroom that isn't changed is the one where preparations for the heist are taking place. As the press are about to enter, Annabelle manages to distract them by revealing that Verity, Thwaites' daughter, was the school bully at her old school. Miss Fritton arrives down the stairs dressed as Queen Elizabeth I. In the midst of the conversation between them, Miss Fritton's dog once again tries to mate with Thwaites' leg. Irritated, Geoffrey kicks him, sending him flying out the window before crashlanding in the lawnmower instantly killing him. The headline in the newspaper reads "Minister kills dog", not really what Thwaites intended. The whole school shows their respect for their headmistress, mourning the loss of the little dog. In the middle of the night, Annabelle is woken up by the girls and as thanks for standing up for the school, is given a confidence-boosting makeover. Afterward when Kelly asks Annabelle how she feels, she replies "Like a St Trinian!" While still not fully accepted, she feels much stronger in herself.

Annabelle tries to persuade Flash Harry to act as a prestigious gay German art dealer named Gerhardt von Struebel so that he can sell a false version of the painting to Carnaby. He feels unsure but Kelly persuades him to comply (as he secretly has feelings for her, although she knows about them and uses them to her advantage; and he does not want to look stupid in front of her). The school team for School Challenge consists of the three Posh Totties, Chelsea, Peaches, and Chloe. They reach the final by cheating (against Ampleforth, two of the First Years steal the answers before the match; against Bedales, they lace their opponents' drinks with magic mushrooms; the Eton team is rendered clueless by their seduction).

During the final, Kelly, Chav Taylor, and emo Andrea foil the security for the painting that they're after and eventually retrieve it but on the way back the cable that they used to climb over the top of the audience of the final of School Challenge snaps just after Taylor and Andrea get over to the other side. Kelly gets stuck with no way to get to other side again. Miss Fritton sees that Kelly is trapped and goes to help, having to also distract Thwaites through a combination of liquor and seduction. Meanwhile, Annabelle takes care of Verity's threat to foil the girls' escape route by shooting her mobile phone with her hockey stick at Verity knocking her out. At the same time of these events, the girls win School Challenge. They had been using earpieces in which other students were feeding the answers to them, but after they stopped working the English teacher told them to use their own initiative, which had surprisingly good results.

The school successfully gets the painting and sells it to Carnaby who fails to realise until he buys it that it is not the genuine print which has been returned to the police under the cover of St Trinian's finding it, but a copy painted by Miss Fritton. He faints and Flash, dressed as Gerhardt to give him the art, races to the car that is waiting for him, which Kelly is driving. They receive a reward of £50,000 for returning the real painting, which they supposedly found. With the cash from Carnaby they pay back the money owed to the bank and St Trinian's stays in business.

Cast

The band members of Girls Aloud (Nicola Roberts, Kimberley Walsh, Sarah Harding, Nadine Coyle and Cheryl Cole) all make cameo appearances as the members of St Trinian's school band, and cameos in the film itself. Zöe Salmon also makes a cameo appearance as an emo girl, while Nathaniel Parker, the director's real-life brother, makes a short appearance as the Chairman of the National Gallery. Jeremy Thompson also briefly appears, as himself.

Release and reception

St Trinian's premiered in London on 10 December 2007 and in wide release on 21 December 2007, it was then released in Australia on 27 March 2008 and in New Zealand on 17 April 2008. Other European releases were planned for Belgium on 9 July 2008, and Germany on 7 August 2008.^[1][2]

St Trinian's was released in North American limited release on 9 October 2009.

The DVD was released in Canada on 11 August 2009.^[3]

St Trinian's grossed £12,042,854 in the UK,^[4] surpassing its £7 million production budget. As of 18 July 2010, the film had grossed a worldwide total of $29,066,483.^[5] It was the fourth highest-grossing film during the 2007 Christmas season behind Enchanted, I Am Legend and The Golden Compass. It ranks in the top grossing independent British films of the past decade.^[6]

The film was released on DVD in March 2008; and in the US on 26 January 2010.

Critical reception

Critically, St Trinian's received mixed reviews. Empire wrote that the film "fuse[s] an understanding of what made the originals great with a modern feel – the writers have fulfilled their end of the bargain, even tweaking some of the weaker points of the original story."^[7] The Observer wrote that it "is raucous, leering, crude and, to my mind, largely misjudged, with Rupert Everett playing Miss Fritton as a coquettish transvestite with the manners of a Mayfair madam. The attempts to shock us fail, though Cheltenham Ladies College may well be affronted to hear one of its teachers say 'between you and I'. But the preview was packed with girls aged from seven to 14 who found it hilarious, and especially enjoyed Russell Brand."^[8]

Derek Malcolm in the Evening Standard wrote: "Structurally, the new movie is a mess, and it doesn't look too convincing either, with cinematography that uses all sorts of old-fashioned dodges to raise a laugh", and "when you look at it again, the old film was not only superior but rather more radical. This St Trinian's looks as if it is aiming at the lowest common denominator, and finding it too often."^[9]

On review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, St Trinian's currently holds a 31% 'Rotten' rating, with the consensus "Both naughtier and campier than Ronald Searle's original post war series, this St. Trinian's leans on high jinks instead of performances or witty dialogue."^[10]

Sequels

It was announced at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival that the sequel, The Legend of Fritton's Gold, also directed by Oliver Parker and Barnaby Thompson, would be released in 2009.^[11] Filming began on 6 July 2009,^[12] and on 7 July 2009, it was announced that David Tennant, Sarah Harding and Montserrat Lombard had all signed on to appear in the sequel.^[13] It was later announced in December 2009 shortly after the release of the second film that there will be a St Trinian's 3.

References

External links

• Official website
• St Trinian's at the Internet Movie Database
• St Trinian's at AllRovi
• St Trinian's at Rotten Tomatoes
• St Trinian's at Metacritic
• St Trinian's at NeoClassics Films