Starter for 10 (2006)
Directed by Tom Vaughan
In 1985, against the backdrop of Thatcherism, Brian Jackson enrolls in the University of Bristol, a scholarship boy from seaside Essex with a love of knowledge for its own sake and a childhood spent watching University Challenge, a college quiz show. At Bristol he tries out for the Challenge team and falls under the spell of Alice, a lovely blond with an extensive sexual past.
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What critics compared Starter for 10 to
Where would we be without his classics such as The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Pretty In Pink and Some Kind Of Wonderful?
While screenwriter David Nicholls (Starter for 10, Great Expectations) provides a bullet-point summary of the book’s melodramatic spikes (stampede, fire, storm, murder) in a brisk 119 minutes, it misses the heart of Hardy, the portrait of 19th-century English rural society, the rapturous celebration of nature and the deeply conflicted characters.
Written by David Nicholls (Starter For 10), this version—the first made for the big screen since John Schlesinger’s, way back in 1967—restructures the narrative to place Ms. Everdene at its center.
Director Thomas Vinterberg ("The Hunt," "The Celebration") and screenwriter David Nicholls ("One Day," "Starter for 10") cut to the heart of Hardy's Victorian tale.
David Nicholls, who also adapted his last college romance ("Starter for 10") for the big screen, deserved a home run here.
Writer David Nicholls did a masterful job adapting his Starter for 10 novel for the big screen, and I thought he would do the same with One Day, another book he wrote and adapted.