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54 out of 56 people found the following review useful: Not just a one-woman show, 4 June 2005 Author: Zena from United States
This movie is often billed as a 'one-woman show', a study of an extraordinary character, Miss Jean Brodie, played by an excellent actress. However, the movie is much more than that. It is a study of charisma and influence, of teachers and students, and presents a complex and fascinating coming-of-age story. This study takes place through the movie's double-focus on both Jean Brodie and her most precocious student, Sandy. Sandy is the strongest and most independent of Miss Brodie's students, and eventually she rebels and rejects her teaching completely. However, she is also truest to her teacher's expressed goals. Miss Brodie supposedly wants to teach 'her girls' to be like herself: powerful, independent individuals, free from the shackles of authority and group-think, beyond conventional sexual morality. In fact, she preys on the weakness and insecurity of her students, punishes independence and rewards slavish loyalty to her and to her personal plans and ideals. (The film's more subtle concern with fascism and authoritarianism echoes this theme: fascism elevates great individuals and praises their strength, just as it demands total obedience and slavishness from the rest.) Sandy, by recognizing and rejecting Miss Brodies's actions and plans, becomes her truest student: not only sexually adventurous, but bold, independent, and confrontational. The final scenes illustrate this beautifully. Miss Brodie has truly put "an old head" on Sandy's "young shoulders", and she truly is "hers for life"--though not in the way originally intended. In this way the movie presents a profound, sophisticated and realistic account of the way powerful individuals influence one another.
34 out of 38 people found the following review useful: Maggie Smith does it again, 12 May 2002 Author: julilks26 from Missouri, US
I don't know about you, but every time I see Maggie Smith on the screen it's always a good sign to stick around for the whole movie. It holds true with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. A rather slow-moving, at first, and quiet movie, it has a certain seductiveness to it that's just below the surface. As you watch the movie you can almost feel and see the emotions building up. Always at the edge and never missing a beat, Smith executes her role with absolute perfection and in doing so driving the audience insane. Pamela Franklin also comes through as a girl changes Miss Brodie's outlook on her and changes our outlook on Miss Brodie. Torn between rooting for her and hating her, and mostly you'll be doing the latter, Miss Brodie is a character with far less facets to her than one might expect. Only once again proving that trust can be misplaced and appearances can be deceiving.
33 out of 37 people found the following review useful: My extended review of the film, 23 March 2005 Author: sol- from Perth, Australia
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' is a film that is rich in ideas. It tackles themes such as favouritism, stereotyping, sexuality, ontology and questioning. But more important than these issues that it explores well, the film is highly multi-layered and it manages to look at how things appear on the surface against what they really are. The film is a brilliant piece of work, however it is almost impossible to praise it without spoilers. So much of the film's power depends on the contrast between the start and finish of the film. This is emphasised by the use of the same type of scene at the beginning and end - with all of the emotional events wedged in between. Please do not read on any further unless you have already seen the film. I would hate to spoil the extraordinary experience of watching this film without knowing what is going to happen.It is an amazing achievement for a film to make you love the protagonist at the beginning, then hate her at the end, and this film does that. It is not because Smith's character changes that we start to dislike her, but rather because our perception changes in the film. On the surface Miss Brodie appears to be an affectionate, caring woman who is fun to be around. But we eventually sink beneath the surface, and realise how manipulative she is, and how she is stereotyping and confining her girls when she praises them on their individual virtues. She doesn't care for the girls as children of her own, but more so her own tools. As Sandy points out in the final confrontation, Miss Brodie sees an individual function and narrow objective with each of her pupils.The film explores ideas about love too, but it is actually more so manipulation in the end. The way that Miss Brodie draws men into her, like she is using them when she sees fit. She says that she is in her prime because she is at a stage in her life when she can control all elements - including the headmistress. She likes being around young minds because they are so easy to influence, and with the male teachers at the school, she uses her 'feminine charms' to entice them. She does not however have any means by which to control the female adults, and therefore she is not on friendly terms with any of them.The acting in the film is excellent by all concerned. Maggie Smith is cunningly brilliant as the heroine/villain combination of friendly wit and below surface ideas that are almost sickening (like trying to create a younger version of herself in Jenny to satisfying her lovers). But, it is really Pamela Franklin's film. Her character matures in the film, defies stereotyping and sees beneath the surface. There are not words to describe how perfectly she plays Sandy, and considering that she was 19-years-old at the time, she plays a 12-year-old girl with amazing realism. She justly won the National Board of Review award for Best Supporting Actress, and it is certainly one of the performances that I have seen of the decade, if not of all time.The technical side of the film is not strikingly amazing, however some shots in the film are very carefully composed, and it seems more as if the director has decided to emphasise the script and performances, rather than try to create a visual feast. And there are deeper reasons for this too, because the film is about things on the surface not being as they seem. On the surface, the film has the look of any typical 1960s drama, but, if you look beneath, you should find a stunning, thought-provoking film that will stay in your mind long after the final credits.
31 out of 38 people found the following review useful: Brilliant film, incredible performance, 27 February 2004 Author: beattyjj from New York
Beautifully filmed and acted by all the performers, this is a knock-out film. Maggie Smith is incredible right down to her Morningside accent. The other players hold their own against her powerhouse performance. The Edinburgh locations are great and the film has a remarkably nostalgic quality that reflects Brodie's romanticism. A beautiful Rod McKuen score as well! A must see film. An interesting comparison can be made with Dead Poet's Society, which has a male teacher in an all male school (compared to a female teacher in an all girl's school). In Brodie, unorthodox irresponsible teaching is condemned while in Dead Poet's Society it is valorized. In both the teaching methods bring about the death of a student and the school's reaction is similar. The film makers, however, come down on opposite sides in their attitudes toward the teachers
22 out of 22 people found the following review useful: Dreams Of "Il Duce", 10 June 2006 Author: mlambertint from United States
Maggie Smith is mesmerizing. She paints the blind monstrosity of Miss Jean Brodie in the most recognizable human tones. Robin William's character in "Dead Poet Society" is as irresponsible but doesn't go near as far as this repressed masterpiece of a creature. Her romantic slant towards "Il Duce" and what he represents is at the core of the simple complexity of the character. Maggie's mannerism, now a precious trade mark, belong to Miss Brodie, totally. Her arms, her chin, the turning of her face. Pamela Franlklin is also superb. What a powerful young actress -- Where is she now? -- and Celia Johnson's performance is the icing on the cake of this feast of a movie.
17 out of 17 people found the following review useful: The creme de la creme of performances by Maggie Smith, 21 September 2000 Author: dennis-111 from Kent, England
I saw this film thirty years ago and Maggie Smith's performance still rates as one of the finest on screen. The storyline is already well known. I just want to crow about her presence in the movie. This woman even managed to blush when she and Mr Lloyd were caught in a clinch by Mary MacGregor! All these years later I still recall the line she delivered so witheringly when she heard that the music teacher she had once been linked with was finally going the marry the science teacher "Do you not think that with one snap of my fingers I couldn't send Miss (beat) Lockhart back to her gaseous domain!" Rent the video and whoop with delight at the sheer brilliance of this woman.Robert Stephens was the least convincing of the lead performers, beside his then wife he was positively wooden. I saw them together on the London Stage in Hedda Gabler and they electrified the place! This film though was all about her. Her scenes with the Head Teacher were astonishing " I didn't want to be late - or early!"A joy!
19 out of 21 people found the following review useful: My personal favorite, 7 June 2002 Author: jbuck_919 from Bamberg, Germany
It is clearly not the greatest movie of all time, but it is my personal favorite, in part because I am a teacher and--well i almost said anglophile, but are we supposed to call it ecosophile (lover of Scotland)?I hardly know where to begin. Making those girls look like little girls and then later like grown-up girls. Jean Brodie's incredibly eccentric persona as a teacher until in the end one "girl" figures her out. The complexity of her personality. How perfectly she is played by Maggie Smith in her greatest role. The fact that the movie dares, for its time, portray an illicit affair between a teacher and a student (the French would have had no such qualms). Jean's insouciant insistance that she can teach any way she wants without any fundamental concern for her students. The art teacher's remark that "Mary McGrogan couldn't navigate her way across Edinburgh" after she has been killed in the Spanish civil war (Edinburgh is a famously compact city). I go on too long. One drawback? That asinine theme song.
20 out of 25 people found the following review useful: A Teacher... First, Last, Always..., 18 March 2004 Author: lizzie_l from Belgium
This is my favourite movie ever. It's made 19 years before I was born, but I don't care. I quite started crying after I'd seen this movie... Maggie Smith may be as old as my grandfather, whatever. She's the most wonderful actress ever... Oh, for heaven's sake, if ever someone deserved an Oscar...What more can I say? Miss Jean Brodie is a dangerous, hypocrite and narcistic woman, and yet you like her. You have to like her. When you watch the movie, you know she's a facist, and you know that what she preaches is rubbish, but you just do not caze. Miss Brodie stands for "art, beauty and truth" and you just feel she's just deceived and too progressive for her time. But, as Sandy says it in the end of the movie, she is "a dangerous woman". Yet I love her.And I love Maggie Smith. Dear Dame Maggie, if you ever read this, you are just... so... damn... bloody... great.Oh for heaven's sake... go and watch this movie.
18 out of 22 people found the following review useful: I'm a teacher, first, last, and always, 28 February 2004 Author: mj-shore from Philadelphia, US
The movie may be a bit long, and may have the boxed in feeling of the stage version, but it has the incredible Maggie Smith. Smith gives one of the greatest performances that I've ever had the honor of seeing, and what do you know, the bozos who give out academy awards finally got one right. Jean may have been haughty, elitist, rude, politically naive,and in the end a very "dangerous woman", but she did believe that she was spreading some beauty and truth in the world, and you can't help but like her. She seems to fight hypocrisy, yet at the same time is a hypocrite. It seems that the only wrong step that she took in guiding Mary was in allowing her to fight for Franco, as Sandy says, "Mary, was fighting for the wrong side". The entire cast was very good also, and it's a shame that Pamela Franklin didn't do more.
16 out of 19 people found the following review useful: Fascists for Freedom?, 24 May 2003 Author: Prof_Lostiswitz from Cyberia
You have to like intense character studies to enjoy this one...and I do. Maggie Smith plays a free-thinking schoolteacher in a 1930's Edinburgh girls' school. You think she is going to be the hero of a sentimental romance as she bucks the backward and narrow-minded establishment...but she turns out to have some dark corners of her own.Her love of flair and romance has led her to admire Mussolini and Italian fascism. That may sound strange for a liberal teacher, but it was typical in 1930's Britain. The left had embraced "proletarian realism", so visionary artists like T.S. Eliot and D.H. Lawrence tended towards monarchism and conservatism; Ezra Pound actually subscribed to fascism. Of course this was a delusionary paradox, for none of these artists (and certainly not Miss Brodie) would have fared well under a fascist regime.She takes great care to see that her pupils (her "gairls") get the best possible education in the spheres she cares about - truth, beauty and romantic history; the practical details of life receive less attention. Her idealized enthusiasm for Franco in the Spanish Civil War causes one of her more vulnerable and suggestible pupils to volunteer to go and fight for the fascists in Spain - where she is killed in an air-raid as soon as her train crosses the border. (This part is not as unrealistic as viewers have complained; there was active pro-fascist recruitment in Ireland and Quebec, so there might have been in Edinburgh).(Spoiler) At the end, the most sober and practical of her "gairls" (Pamela Franklin) confronts her and exposes the falsehood of her pretensions - "you're a dangerous woman, Miss Brodie". So she probably is, but that's only because the system is so stupid and backward that an imaginative and energetic soul like Brodie can outshine everybody else, even though she is morally misguided.This is an examination of a complex personality, so stay away if you are looking for good guys and bad guys. The acting is great across the board; Maggie Smith won an Oscar, one of the few times it went to someone deserved it.
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