Forget the prologue which preludes the long flashback which is the core of the movie.First scene:in a room,two boys make love while,in the main courtyard of the posh school (Eton?),a ceremony commemorates the dead soldier of WW1,with pump and circumstance:the two bedrocks of the family, Army and Religion taking in hand the third one:School.Behind these walls,inside these venerable buildings,mortal hatred ,intolerance and repression are looming.Outside,the splendid landscapes are unchanging,particularly this quiet river which comes back as a leitmotiv.And most of the students wants to keep the world as it is,because they know they are part of the privileged few.Their studies are a mere rehearsal of their life-to-be. Becoming a prefect,what a feat! Being called "god" what a honor! Being able to push the others out of your way,that makes you a man!
Two young men refuse the rules of the game:the first one ,Tommy (a good Colin Firth),the most loyal character of a rather obnoxious. gathering.He sticks to his ideals,and he will die for them.He believes in Marx and in Stalin(we're in the thirties ) ;he would never betray anybody,and the audience sides with him most of the time. The second one ,Guy,(Rupert Everett at his best)is a gay,in love with a younger pal.He,too,rebels against this rigid institutions,but he's more complex:actually he tries to become a prefect and then a god,because he has kept his ambitions and he would easily opt for a compromise solution.He could but he will not..Homosexuality,when it's secret is no problem for the bourgeois society.Guy's character will mute and finally he realizes that he cannot live in the shadow.That's his downfall.
No commies,no gays can be part of the crème de la crème.The posh school reputation,once the non-straight ones(in the general sense of the word)are eradicated,can sleep the sleep of the just.
Sometimes compared with Lindsay Anderson's "If"(1970),its atmosphere is drastically different though :there's no dreamlike sequences here,no madness.It rather recalls "der junge Torless" (Schloendorff,1966)and it might have influenced James Ivory's "Maurice" (1986). An overlooked important movie.
