The Getting of Wisdom

Bruce Beresford's 1978 drama is a likable movie, one that is part of the 12 DVD boxed set 'Australian Cinema Collection vol 1', that I imported from Down Under and am working through. This is the 2nd disc.

Usually, period dramas and ones that feature boarding school girls, hold less interest for me and I wasn't necessarily looking forward to watching it. However, it rolled along nicely, with believable and unpretentious characters, both the girls and the staff. The dialogue was 'teenage-girly' and believable as was the rather stuffy infatuation with and study of the classics, which was the way of etiquette and all that, back in the 1880's. Their recital and devotion to learning it is both touching but also slightly pathetic, if you think that there were so many other things in the world for them to be taught.

Which is what it was all about, really. Class. How you couldn't step up the ladder and how your social circumstances dictate how you live and how others treat you. Aside of that, I found the puppy love crush on a handsome teacher by quite a few of the girls absolutely wonderful and so very normal!

The Getting of Wisdom is not really a film I'd probably watch again, at least not in a hurry. It's certainly not Australia's best film but a very satisfactory one.