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Rating: 4.5 out of 5
A teacher can be one of the most influential people in your life. Many people have credited a teacher for inspiring or believing in them throughout their lives. My all-time favorite teacher was my 5th-grade teacher. She was the one who taught me the word potential and told me to always reach for it. She never gave up on me and was the first teacher that made me achieve my dream of getting straight A’s. I am forever grateful to my 5th-grade teacher.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a film where a teacher influences her students in a questionable and political way while also giving up her prime to influence young minds. The film is directed by Ronald Neame. The screenplay was written by Jay Presson Allen, who wrote the play, which was, in turn, based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Muriel Spark.
Set in the 1930s in Edinburgh, Scotland, at the conservative private girls’ school, one of the most flamboyant teachers is the one and only Jean Brodie, played by the lovely Dame Smith. Ms. Brodie has quite the romantic views of everything, one being the politics of leaders Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco. Ms. Brodie sees herself as a teacher and wants to influence her young students, especially four, whom she finds remarkable. Ms. Brodie feels that it is her life’s mission to ensure her four girl’s future is set and asks for their loyalty. During the 1932/1933 school year, Ms. Brodie, in her thirties, feels that she is in the prime of her life and, as such, has more of her experience to impart. The set of girls she has chosen is Sandy (Franklin), the insightful leader; Jenny (Grayson), the romantic one; Monica (Steedman), the literary one; and Mary McGregor (Carr), the stuttering and timid orphan.
Ms. Brodie is at odds with many other staff members and the headmistress, Emmeline Mackay (Johnson), during the year. The reason is that Ms. Brodie doesn’t teach the standard curriculum, but she brings her improper attitude toward life into her classroom. Ms. Mackay would like to have Ms. Brodie removed, but Ms. Brodie has tenure. Ms. Brodie also is quite the flirt as she begins a relationship with the school’s music teacher, Gordon Lowther (Jackson). However, she is still attracted to the school’s married art teacher, Teddy Lloyd (Stephens), with whom she had an affair and who still loves her. Ms. Brodie’s crew knows what’s up with Ms. Brodie’s personal life. Over the years, Ms. Brodie’s girls will soon profoundly affect Miss Brodie through their actions.
The drama surrounding Miss Brodie is something else; she would’ve been gone a long time ago. I was expecting a film about someone who does amazing and great things in the prime of their life. I wasn’t expecting a teacher to have views and specific actions that push her students in a particular way. We had teachers that influenced us, but damn, Miss Brodie was something else. On the political side of the real, Miss Brodie was a fascist and openly admired Benito Mussolini and praised him to her class. Brodie influenced her students to do STUPID things. Case in point, she influenced one of her students to go off and fight with her brother, believing they were fighting for the side she believed in, only to find out the brother was fighting for the opposition. I can get around the political environment because it is discussed today.
Where Brodie went off the deep end was with her sect. She pushed her girls to be romantic and have affairs with other teachers or who she believed was best for them. Brodie crossed the line here, but Brodie also had her sexual adventures having two affairs with teachers but also stringing them along. You have some issues when a teacher brings you into the bathroom to make out. You might have some problems when you go to a dance, and another teacher calls you out. Miss Brodie stated that she doesn’t need love but preaches romance in her class.
Out of all of Miss Brodie’s sect, only one student was the main focus of the film, Sandy. I thought Sandy was nerdy and unattractive at the beginning of the film. You could tell she was the leader of the group and the smartest, but something about her was off to me. When she got older and legal age, homegirl blossomed. She became the girl of my dreams. Sandy had her own drama. In one scene, she was a little girl, and in the next, she was lying naked on the bed, getting painted by her teacher. Side note: she has a really banging body. Then we find out Sandy is having an affair with one of the art teachers who would leave his wife and six kids. The teacher also loves Miss Brodie.
Sandy might be the star for Miss Brodie, but when Mary dies, that is when the opinion of Miss Brodie changes. Miss Brodie has stated that no one could get rid of her because she had tenure and given her prime to teaching. Sandy did the whole “hold my beer” because homegirl planned to get rid of Miss Brodie. The ending’s climax showed the heated argument between Sandy and Miss Brodie. As Miss Brodie tries to figure out who reported her, Sandy stood like she didn’t know anything. When Sandy dropped the bomb on Miss Brodie, fireworks ensue. It is crazy because Sandy lets Miss Brodie have it. Sandy strolls out of the school like a muthafreakin boss as Miss Brodie yells Assassin.
There are really only two people we need to give praise to. The first one is Maggie Smith as Jean Brodie. I am used to seeing Dame Smith as a kind professor in the Harry Potter series. Dame Smith was excellent in this film. She stood by her beliefs and values even if they were wrong. She was a teacher that had high standards for her students. Her motto for her students was, “Little girls, I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my pupils are the crème de la crème. Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life.” Dame Smith seemed to have a certain control and awe in her role and really brought Miss Brodie to life. Dame Smith deserved her Academy Award.
The second one was Pamela Franklin as Sandy. I really enjoyed Franklin’s performance. She was fantastic, and she showed the change in Sandy. Initially, she was a naïve but innocent little girl who looked up to Miss Brodie. As time went on, she became wiser and more sexually active. Sandy cared for her friends; when Mary got killed, she became hard. Well done, Pamela Franklin.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was a surprise film for me as I wasn’t expecting the subject matter and the drama around Miss Brodie. Miss Brodie gave her prime to teaching and the girls, but she had some views that were quite off. Watch this film because it is excellent. Glad Dame Maggie Smith became a professor at Hogwarts.
