Movie Watch! - Starter for 10

Starter for 10 (2007) - Whatever happened to the good old American romantic comedy? It seems like Hollywood has been outdone by the Brits. It's hard to compete when you've made a film that features a fresh ensemble cast (as opposed to Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Garner, or anyone else ever romantically linked to Ben Affleck), a slyly intelligent script that focuses on character-based humor (in contrast to drab slapstick), and doesn't feel one bit forced or familiar. It's exciting to watch something done well, to observe what happens when one succeeds in breathing new life into an otherwise pointless, overdone genre. It's pretty clear that I'm a big fan of James McAvoy. He doesn't disappoint here. He plays Brian Jackson, a working class chap from Essex who has a genuine thirst for knowledge and the doors it can open for him. He's caught between his old friends and his new life. Sound familiar? This should have been a boring romp through the same old class conflicts, but it wasn't. It's nothing entirely revolutionary, but Jackson's quest to become a better man when he enters university, to become valiant in the classroom and to fall epically in love, it's something endearing and admirable and all too familiar to the youth of today, even as this movie takes place in 1985. I won't ruin the film, but it's definitely worth a watch. 9/10