I guess the most shocking moment in this film was the time out for Tea right in the middle of a major Cricket match. They took their good ol' time too! Not sure how accurate this portrayal was but I was dumbfounded. All that energy, excitement and sporting man's virulence, and whamo, time for tea??? Albert is too understated in his role here. I found the only scene with his response to the Browning Version gift, exceptional, heartfelt, and very compelling.I had trouble with so many other themes, i.e. he was married to someone 20-30+ years age difference and they were together for FIFTEEN YEARS??? This was not Victorian England mind you, move on fer cryin out loud. She was absolutely gorgeous and bored out of her mind and how could two fascinating folks be so shut down, mean and plain unable to have a fun conversation? It made no sense whatsoever.If he had more than 20 years with the school and still not eligible for a pension I guess that rather confused me. I thought they said he was there for 18 and why would he expect an exception, he was an offish social moron! These days, how many people are fired after 30+ years of service and leave with absolutely nothing, and this is within major Fortune 100 companies! Extremely sad but more common than not.We had Latin studies in Junior High and figured it might be fun to sit in on a class or two given that I spent most of my youth in Catholic school with Mass providing my greatest insight into the holiest of phrases. I can sing in Latin and can even translate a few lines from the movie "Tombstone". WooHoo!This film just plodded along too slowly for my taste and I am one of a prodigious appreciation for dialog and finer elements of intrigue. Hence, I sadly cannot recommend this for anything but a complete anthology of Albert Finney screen productions.

A movie about coming to terms with a life that didn't turn out, at you thought it would, about the importance of little things, when the structure itself is crumbling. I don't know exactly what it was about this movie but it just hit me, where i live. I cried my eyes out, and it colored my emotions for weeks after-wards. It deals with most of the issues that an adult is faced with; marriage, work relations, personal identity, etc., from the viewpoint of an aging teacher, who does what he does, except it isn't really working, as he thought would. Social acceptance and respect is missing, his marriage is on the rocks. In a way he is like a mundane Horatio on the bridge, who keeps fighting, knowing all too well, that the fight is lost, hoping perhaps beyond hope, that one small victory is possible.

The movie lives with the superior performance of Albert Finney, who puts Crocker-Harris alive so tremendously, that you can't help but suffer with him. So much that you nearly wish to jump into the screen… ...to support that poor man in his struggle against unfairness.Finney plays a senior teacher at an English elite school, who is not very popular, even addressed with the nickname "Hitler" of his form, due to his severe strictness and dry adoration for the classical, but dead poets of ancient Greek and Latin. As a perfect British gentleman he is tied by fully self-controlled formality, holding back all his emotions. He is totally obliged to conventions, always saying yes to everything. Except once.

It's not only a teacher's downfall:it's also the twilight of a teaching,not only a way of teaching but also the teaching of dead languages.Half a century ago,Latin and Greek were the elite's pride.Now they have been dethroned by mathematics and science,... and English in the countries where the first language is not that of Shakespeare.The science teacher just happens to be a young "modern" smiling dude,whereas Finney's successor is an older man who does not seem that much funny ..This movie destroys a cliché: the lit(or language or history) teacher is liberal,the science teacher is a bore (check the notorious "dead poet society").Finney is called the "Hitler of the low sixth-form" and hated by both his students and his colleagues.It's the actor's performance which gives the movie substance.All that surrounds him is not that much great:cardboard characters such as his principal,his wife ,her lover et al, the umpteenth version of the posh school.But Albert Finney's rendering is extremely moving.He remains sparing of gestures and of words.When he's given a present (first time by one of his students ,"the Browning version" of a Greek drama),he understands that you 're never a wash-out when at least,you've enriched a human being 's mind.And when he publicly criticizes himself,the standing ovation he gets shows that the assembly has finally understood the mote and the beam parable.Compares favorably with the first version.