Review: Starter for Ten

UK release date: 10th November

TV’s University Challenge provides a hilarious framing device for debut director Tom Vaughan’s spirited coming-of-age comedy. Adapted by David Nicholls from his own bestselling novel, it stars a charismatic James McAvoy as a gawky, working-class student navigating through his chaotic fresher year at Bristol University in the mid-1980s.

Bittersweet lessons about life and love follow, precipitated by two headstrong girls (a chalk-and-cheese Alice Eve and Rebecca Hall) and a dream opportunity to compete in his favourite academic telly quiz (whose opening phrase gives the film its title).

With its smart, pop culture-infused dialogue and evocative period soundtrack, this campus charmer has all the buoyancy of a John Hughes teen caper. But it’s the sharp, distinctly British humour and nostalgic warmth that have most appeal. Adroitly combined, they enhance an otherwise conventional plot and bring out the best in a collectively fine cast — especially in the delicious, climactic recreation of University Challenge.

Radio Times rating:

****

UK cinema certificate 12A
Running time 96mins

Review by Sloan Freer

News: James McAvoy

The 27-year-old Shameless star may remain best known for his TV work, but the next year or so could well see him hit the big time, with this week’s Starter for Ten just the first of many films in which he’ll be taking the lead, rather than the supporting turns he’s mostly had to put up with to date. Next up is The Last King of Scotland, an adaptation of the Giles Foden novel about the relationship between Mentalist Ugandan dictator Idi Amin – a top-notch Forest Whittaker – and his scottish doctor, played by McAvoy, which received rave reviews at its London Film Festival screening, and is due for a nationwide release in the second week of January. He has also already completed work on Penelope, starring opposite Christina Ricci and Reese Witherspoon, a Tim Burtonesque fable with Ricci as a woman deformed by a family curse, desperately searching for love and acceptance.

Coming up in the next year or so, McAvoy will continue to add to his enviable leading ladies opposite Keira Knightley in the film adaptation of Ian McEwan’s bestselling Atonement, following that up with a role in the Anne Hathaway-starring Becoming Jane, about the young Jane Austen’s tragic romance with Tom Lefroy – who else but McAvoy? – the man who helped inspire her novels.

Meanwhile, although McAvoy has claimed to have little interest in big Hollywood blockbusters, it looks like his first action role could also be on the cards. Set to star opposite Morgan Freeman, McAvoy will play the son of a super-powered assassin who takes on his father’s mantle in this big screen adaptation of Mark Millar’s comic series Wanted. Shooting is set to start in January 2007 for a 2008 release – and could well see McAvoy really hit the big time.