Spud (***)
Directed by: Donovan Marsh
Starring: Troye Sivan, John Cleese, Jamie Royal, Sven Ruygrok, Genna
Blair, Charlbi Dean Kriek, Jason Cope, Tanit Phoenix, Jeremy Crutchley,
Sylvaine Strike, Lehasa Moloi
Seen: December 7th 2010
*** Out of ****
I’ll kick of this review saying that I believe reading the book is a
prerequisite for fully enjoying the movie. Without the book, the movie might feel
like a series of amusing but irrelevant anecdotes, but add the book and colour
floods into the world of John Milton (Sivan), a.k.a. Spud. Johnny’s (as Spud’ mermaid
Debbie (Blair) calls him) fairly odd parents drop him off for his first year at
Michaelhouse. He is extremely image conscious, and takes a knock in this from
the minute he arrives, his parents dropping him off with their old rust-bucket of
a car amidst numerous luxury sedans.
In his dorm room he gets to know what he dubs as the Crazy Eight, boys
from his year in school, and he does what he can to fit in. The self-appointed
and self-nicknamed leader of the group Robert ‘Rambo’ Black (Ruygrok); the
deranged slingshot toting Charlie ‘Mad Dog’ Hooper; sickly Henry ‘Gecko’ Barker (Royal) always ends up in the sanatorium, eventually becoming Spud’s first good friend;
Sex-maniac Allan ‘Boggo’ Greenstein always has an adult magazine close by; Vern
‘Rain Man’ Blackadder has rather rponounced anti-social tendencies; Simon Brown
does not get a nickname as he’s too awesome for one; with Fatty the iconic big
guy.
As Spud progresses through his first year he experiences quite a few
trials and tribulations and emerges the better for it. He’s selected as Oliver
in the school play; he’s bullied by his dorm mates; he forms a close
relationship with his eccentric English teacher, The Gov (Cleese); he joins
Gecko on multiple visits to the sanitorium; he deals with his crazy father and
only slightly less crazy mother; and much more. The movie is faithful to the
book, but quite a lot has been left out in the conversion to the screen, as the
book simply contains too much details: my opening statement refers to this. Casting
for this movie could not possibly have been better for every single character,
and writer John van de Ruit himself acknowledged that Troye Sivan is exactly
the way he pictured Spud.
While the first half of the movie is merely enjoyable and amusing to watch
as you recognise characters from the book and their idiosyncrasies, the second
half is where the feeling really starts bursting through as Spud is forced to
deal with some things that can be considered quite harsh for a boy of his age
to have to go through: an alcoholic teacher/friend, the loss of a good friend,
and even the loss of innocence (slightly removed from him as it is Rambo who
has an affair with te beautiful Eve (Phoenix), their drama teacher). The movie
eventually turns out to be a real feel-good affair, and manages to avoid
becoming a bumbling idiot type of comedy as the trailer implied. Spud has real
feeling, real impact, and offers real entertainment value from a South African market
that has, in recent years, provided it in limited quantity and quality.
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