Early on in this boarding-school comedy, set in a private boys’ college in South Africa just as Apartheid fell in 1990, the movie’s titular hero makes the not altogether unfair observation that the place appears to be 'a war zone".
It’s certainly a cruel society. The lads here must endure flatulence contests (any further explication on this writer’s part on this issue is, I do believe, unnecessary), there’s a designated school bully called Rambo (Sven Ruygrok), and one kid frequently deploys a sling shot to murder unsuspecting pigeons who happen to stray into the boys’ stone and stained glass dorm; oh, and when he’s not doing that, he’s setting kids on fire. Then there are existential and sexual matters to consider; fitting in is essential, maintains 13-year-old John Milton (Troye Sivan). If one doesn’t, they stand out, and standing out means being beaten up. Actually, John does stand out in a way; while taking a communal shower the other lads discover that, in his words, 'I have a small willy and my balls have not yet dropped". Thus, he is christened 'Spud’ by one and all. This particular body horror is a complete irrelevancy to any possible sexual contact for Spud anyway, since he finds the act of even speaking to a girl, like his pretty and willing cousin Debbie (Genna Blair), sends him mute.
Blackly comic, occasionally bizarre, definitely grotesque and weirdly touching all at once, this irony-soaked South African film from writer/director Donovan Marsh is an adaptation of a series of novels by John van de Ruit. I haven’t read any of them but I understand that they are hugely popular in South Africa. (There is three in the series and a fourth was being prepared as the film hit the marketplace mid-2011.) But if the movie is anything like the book it’s easy to see why van de Ruit’s vision might work so well with young readers; the movie is a mix of exaggerated comic vignettes and earnest (and I have to say well earned) adolescent angst, spiked with some satirical jibes at the expense of dated attitudes to race and class, specific to recent South African history. The mood and the attitude captures teen hostility for authority and (fear thereof) in equal measure with the yearning for both approval and autonomy.
Spud has a mentor supplied in the form of The Guv, played by John Cleese at his acerbic, ebullient best. He’s a hard drinking literary teacher who provides Spud with a reading list aimed at providing solace from his many confusions over life, the universe and everything. (The Guv’s choices include the literary brain twisters Catch-22 and Waiting for Godot, a nice touch this.)
Meanwhile, the story provides a best pal for Spud, too; Gecko (Jamie Royal) is the kind of kid who should wear a 'road-kill’ brand. He’s an accident waiting to happen. For most of the picture he’s a figure of fun. But late in the story, his subplot takes a grim turn and so does the movie, but this soulful plot manoeuvre works to give the film some sincerity. Like Spud, the mood matures. Still, social and cultural observation is limited to a series of sight gags and one melodramatic beat early on where one of the black students confronts a kid over his racist attitudes"¦
As a movie, Donovan’s adaptation is risk-free and consciously episodic and unapologetically sentimental. The film’s storylines converge around Spud playing the lead in the school’s musical version of Oliver Twist complete with corny 'alternate’ songs and lyrics. (The original West End version and its lucrative rights may well have been out of reach of this film’s modest budget!) Its last moments untangle all twists and turns. It’s all very sweet. But it’s a whole lot less convincing than the film’s savage attack on the merciless mayhem of adolescence that gives the movie’s first half its zing.
