St Trinians (2009)

The bad girls of St. Trinian’s School for Young Ladies are back. Originally created by cartoonist Ronald Searle during World War II, the fictional anarchic school and its criminal mastermind pupils return for another round of trouble. St. Trinian’s, a reboot of 1954’s The Belles of St. Trinian’s, revives a long-dormant film franchise to mixed results.

At the start of the film, businessman Carnaby Fritton (Rupert Everett) takes his goody-goody daughter, Annabelle (Talulah Riley), out of the prestigious Cheltenham Ladies College and enrolls her in his sister Camilla’s (Everett again, this time in drag) run-down house of bedlam. More than just peeling paint and graffiti in the halls, this school’s got serious problems. Thanks to the unorthodox free spirit that is schoolmarm Camilla — who closely resembles another buck-tooth British Camilla — the school is deep in debt to the bank. They’ve also got a reputation for bad behavior that includes producing and selling murderous moonshine for a local criminal named Flash Harry (Russell Brand). It’s just the kind of place that the new education minister Geoffrey Thwaites (Colin Firth) is looking to make an example of. All this leaves the door wide open for conniving Carnaby to try to hasten St. Trinian’s closing in order to profit on its sale.

Like any onscreen high school, St. Trinian’s has its rival cliques. The “posh totties” (the preppie princesses, if you’re stateside) the chavs (the thugs), the geeks, the emos, and the first years (the frosh, but in a decidedly more street urchin-y way) are all presided over by head girl, Kelly (Gemma Arterton). When the girls catch wind of the plot, they set aside their differences to save their school. But these are St. Trinian’s girls, after all, so you can scratch any thoughts of bake sales or letter-writing campaigns. Their plan involves stealing Vermeer’s “Girl With the Pearl Earring” from the National Gallery during a high school trivia quiz competition.

There are lots of extra plot points along the way. The girls spend a clunky montage cheating their way into the finals of the trivia competition to get close to the painting. Annabelle’s former tormentor at Cheltenham, who she must best on the field hockey pitch and at film’s-end, is also Geoffrey’s daughter. And Camilla and Geoffrey have past romantic history. You know it because the score switches to a forlorn rendition of “Love is a Many Splendid Thing” whenever they’re within 50 feet of one another.

Thankfully, this extraneous romantic plot point provides some of the funniest moments in the film. Everett’s portrayal of Camilla with labored but barely present femininity and his overbite-quivering flirtation with Firth is hilarious. For his part, Firth plays the ideal straight man with a gift for physical comedy. He’s also a good sport about the film’s frequent ribbing of his real-life career, even allowing his leg to be humped by a dog named (wait for it) Mr. Darcy.

Directed by Oliver Parker and Barnaby Thompson, the film-making behind St. Trinian’s is hardly anything to write home about. The camerawork is sloppy when it’s not too busy being trite. Parker and Thompson also completely waste the other acting vets in the cast, including Stephen Fry and 300’s Lena Headey. Presumably, this is in order to focus on the schoolgirls. But other than the sex appeal oozing from Arterton (sure to be coming soon to a Maxim cover near you) and the scene-stealing of the demented and totally creepy twin first-years (Holly and Chloe Mackie), the performances are likable and amusing but also forgettable. Meanwhile, a cameo by Mischa Barton as a former head girl turned PR powerhouse might just confirm Ms. Barton’s rumored fear that her acting career is over.

Even with its flaws, I found myself laughing often throughout St. Trinian’s. Having never seen the original film or any of its subsequent sequels, I can’t speak to whether or not it captures the spirit of the original. It is, however, a fun, campy little caper with a fair dose of British wit. Plus, Colin Firth’s bare backside. And what could ever be wrong with that?