The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)

Our Rating: 2 out of 5

Rated: NR (PG13)

Reviewer: Charity Bishop

In the world of great literature, there are her heroines and anti-heroines, individuals we struggle to understand and entirely disapprove of yet feel emotion for regardless. Jean Brodie is just such an anti-heroine.

Convention and morality dominate at the fashionable girls' school that employs Miss Jean Brodie (Maggie Smith). There, her romanticized and often fascist view of the world causes her to stand out like a beacon among her coworkers, several of whom are romantically smitten with her. Bereft of a husband since her fiancé perished in the first world war, Jean has chosen to pursue teaching as her only purpose, surrounding herself with impressionable young minds that adore her, a handful of which become her "Brodie gels." These are the girls that show the most potential, who are the prettiest, smartest, and most eager to embrace her guidance, whom she takes under her wing and shares special occasions with. She takes them to the theater, on outings, and shares lunch with them outside. Sandy (Pamela Franklin) is her favorite, for her intelligence. Jenny (Diane Grayson) is the prettiest, Monica (Shirley Steedman) the most romantic, and Mary (Jane Carr) most in need of her assistance in overcoming her shyness and stutter.

The headmistress (Celia Johnson) has long been concerned about the influence Jean has over her gels, but her multiple attempts to force the woman out are met with cold confidence and self-assurance. Little does she realize Jean is attempting to dissuade the romantic attentions of the married art teacher, Teddy Lloyd (Robert Stephens), with whom she had a momentary fling -- an infatuation that will unfurl and encompass all their lives when one of her gels realizes the truth about Miss Brodie... and sets out to stop her. Reviewing older movies isn't really my forte, but I know there are a lot of Maggie Smith fans out there and since this the part for which she won an Oscar, I thought it deserved further exploration. This is one of the most fascinating movies I have ever seen. In purely cinematic terms it is a masterpiece, an accomplishment of incredible feat considering it is dialogue-heavy but never seems slow or mundane. It takes a character that the audience should not like (actually, two of them!) and makes us care about her fate. In the hands of anyone but Maggie Smith, Jean Brodie would have been contemptible, but the cheer charisma and energy with which she is tackled makes her multi-dimensioned and slightly pathetic instead.

My reason for renting this was because I love Maggie's performances and have never seen her when she was young, and her costar in this is her at-that-time husband Robert Stephens. I suspected there would be fire between them and wasn't wrong -- their chemistry is flawless and indeed, they have one of the finest scenes together early on in which he confronts her about their love affair. But the one that really impressed me was Pamela Franklin, who flies beneath the radar for the first half and then holds her own in the dramatic showdown with Miss Brodie at the very end, not an easy task. Alas, that is where my praise must end, because as you might have guessed from the summary, the film is rampant with implications and immoral undertones, most of which I haven't even addressed yet. Jean's view of the world is that of a liberated female who dislikes the social confines of the era. Her gels are educated in the art of liberal sexuality, and she encourages them to grow up and have multiple "lovers." Dialogue hints at a sexual fling with Lloyd, while she carries on with another teacher (he mentions guiltily that she spends the night and begs her to marry him -- she declines). The girls discuss intercourse on several occasions (in a rather innocent and humorous way) and write a letter from Jean to one of her lovers (which is discovered by the headmistress and read aloud). More distasteful is Jean's intention to distract Lloyd from pursuing her by involving him with Jenny -- who is all of seventeen. He winds up having an affair with another of her gels, whom he is shown painting nude (her breasts are visible for several moments, as is her buttocks as she dresses). Another sketch includes a close-up of a nude man.

The political undercurrent and clear hypocrisy within the characters is fascinating -- Jean waxes romantic about the likes of Mussolini and other fascists of the time, little realizing that she is rooting for the wrong side. Her influence leads one of the girls to make a terrible mistake and pay a mighty price. While railing against the headmistress' views of the world, the ever-blind Jean commits the same crime of indoctrination with her liberal values and viewpoints. Yet at the end we feel rather sorry for her. I like movies that are morally ambiguous and force the viewer to draw conclusions based on both their sense of empathy and their own moral standards. I find stories that ask us to shift between what we know is right and acceptance of what the characters are trying to say to be a great intellectual exercise. In that regard, I very much enjoyed this film, but am sorry it had nudity in it, because that somewhat diminished the experience. When it was screened for the queen prior to its release, several scenes were edited out so as not to offend her sensibilities. It's a shame they were put back in to offend mine.