St Trinian's
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Oliver Parker Barnaby Thompson
Screenplay by	Piers Ashworth Nick Moorcroft
Based on	St. Trinian's School by Ronald Searle
Produced by	Oliver Parker Barnaby Thompson
Starring	Rupert Everett Colin Firth Gemma Arterton Lena Headey Jodie Whittaker Russell Brand Stephen Fry Celia Imrie Toby Jones Talulah Riley
Cinematography	Gavin Finney
Edited by	Alex Mackie
Music by	Charlie Mole
Production companies	Ealing Studios Fragile Films UK Film Council
Distributed by	Entertainment Film Distributors
Release date	21 December 2007 (2007-12-21)
Running time	97 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	£7 million
Box office	$29.1 million

St Trinian's is a 2007 British comedy film and the sixth in a long-running series of British films based on the works of cartoonist Ronald Searle set in St Trinian's School. The first five films form a series, starting with The Belles of St. Trinian's in 1954, with sequels in 1957, 1960, 1966 and a reboot in 1980. The release of 2007, 27 years after the last entry, and 53 years after the first film, is a rebooting of the franchise, rather than a direct sequel, with certain plot elements borrowed from the first film.

Whereas the earlier films concentrated on the adults, this film gives the school pupils greater prominence. St Trinian's is an anarchic school for uncontrollable girls run by eccentric headmistress Camilla Dagey Fritton (the reboot continues the tradition, established by Alastair Sim in the original film, of casting a male actor to play the female headmistress, with Rupert Everett inheriting the role).

St Trinian's received mixed reviews but remains one of the highest-grossing British independent films of the last thirty years.

Plot

Annabelle Fritton, an uptight daddy's girl, unwillingly transfers to St Trinian's from the distinguished Cheltenham Ladies' College at the request of her father, Carnaby Fritton. Annabelle is resentful and insulting, telling her father that the school is "like Hogwarts for pikeys". She is taken around the school by Kelly Jones, the head girl, who introduces her to the various cliques within the school.

Annabelle is harassed and pranked by the girls while in the shower and a video of her running around the school naked and wet is broadcast live on the internet. After a phone argument with her father she is drafted to the hockey team when she hits her phone with her hockey stick, smashing a statue. The girls of St Trinian's are involved in business with spiv Flash Harry, who pays them to make cheap vodka. Flash is shown to be romantically interested in Kelly, who initially turns him down.

The Cheltenham Ladies' College hockey team arrive at St Trinian's, along with Education Minister Geoffrey Thwaites. Thwaites is shown to have romantic history with the headmistress of St Trinian's, Camilla Fritton. Annabelle is forced to face her former bullies, including captain Verity Thwaites. The hockey match is violent, ending in Kelly shooting a winning goal for St Trinian's, and she begins to fit in with the other girls. As the match is being played, Thwaites inspects the school, finding the illegal vodka-making business and the chatline being run by the Posh Totty clique.

The following morning, a banker arrives at the school and serves Camilla with a foreclosure notice, as the school owes the bank in excess of £500,000 and has ignored six previous final demands. A subsequent meeting between Camilla and Carnaby is watched by the girls using hidden cameras, in which Carnaby confesses his distaste towards his daughter. Annabelle is clearly upset, despite Camilla defending her. Carnaby encourages Camilla to turn the school into a boutique hotel, telling her that "when this school closes down, you'll have lost everything. More importantly, so will I."

Kelly and Flash work with the students to devise a plan to save the school. They must get into the final of School Challenge, a TV quiz show held in the National Gallery in London, as a cover for stealing Vermeer's Girl With a Pearl Earring. Chelsea, Peaches and Chloe (the Posh Totty clique) are chosen as the School Challenge Team. By cheating in every round, they make it to the grand final. As the final is being filmed, Kelly, Taylor and Andrea steal the painting, with help from the Geeks, Annabelle and Camilla herself.

Camilla paints an exact copy of the painting and has Flash, posing as a German art dealer, sell it to Carnaby in a black market deal. The school then receives a further £50,000 reward for returning the real painting to the National Gallery. The loans are able to be repaid and the school is saved.

Cast and characters

• Talulah Riley as Annabelle Fritton, a shy new student at St Trinian's after Carnaby, her father, dumps her there, and Camilla's niece
• Lily Cole as Polly, the Geek
• Juno Temple as Celia, the "Trustafarian" one
• Kathryn Drysdale as Taylor, the Chav
• Paloma Faith as Andrea, the Emo
• Gemma Arterton as Kelly Jones, the resourceful Head Girl of St Trinian's
• Tamsin Egerton as Chelsea, a Posh Totty
• Antonia Bernath as Chloe, a Posh Totty
• Amara Karan as Peaches, a Posh Totty
• Cloe and Holly Mackie as Tara & Tania, the Twins
• Caterina Murino as Miss Maupassant, the Foreign Languages Teacher
• Celia Imrie as Matron, of St Trinian's
• Jodie Whittaker as Beverly, the receptionist at St Trinian's
• Stephen Fry as Stephen Fry, the School Challenge presenter
• Toby Jones as Bursar, of St Trinian's
• Fenella Woolgar as Miss Cleaver, the Sports Teacher
• Anna Chancellor as Miss Bagstock, Cheltenham School's Headmistress
• Lucy Punch as Verity Thwaites, the Minister's daughter, and Cheltenham's school bully
• Lena Headey as Miss Dickinson, St Trinian's new English Teacher
• Mischa Barton as JJ French, the PR Guru, and previous Head Girl of St Trinian's
• Russell Brand as Flash, the spiv
• Rupert Everett as Camilla Fritton / Carnaby Fritton, St Trinian's Headmistress and Annabelle's aunt, and Camilla's brother and Annabelle's father, respectively
• Colin Firth as Geoffrey Thwaites, the Education Minister
• Dolly as Mr Darcy
• Theo Cross as Art Teacher
• Tereza Srbova as Anoushka
• Steve Furst as Bank Manager

The members of Girls Aloud (Nicola Roberts, Kimberley Walsh, Sarah Harding, Nadine Coyle and Cheryl Cole) all make cameo appearances as the members of St Trinian's school band in the film. Zöe Salmon also makes a cameo as an emo girl, while Nathaniel Parker, the director's real life brother, makes a short appearance as the Chairman of the National Gallery. Newscaster Jeremy Thompson also briefly appears, as himself.

Music

The film's score was composed by Charlie Mole.

Filming locations

• Park Place, Remenham, Berkshire, England (St Trinian's school)
• Ealing Studios, Ealing, London, England
• London, England
• Oxfordshire, England
• The National Gallery, London, England, (exteriors, The National Gallery)
• Trafalgar Square, St James's, London, England

Release

St Trinian's premiered in London on 10 December 2007 and was theatrically released on 21 December 2007 by Entertainment Film Distributors.

Reception

Critical response

Rupert Everett was praised by critics for his performance.

St Trinian's received mixed reviews. Empire wrote that the film "fuse[s] an understanding of what made the originals great with a modern feel – the writers have fulfilled their end of the bargain, even tweaking some of the weaker points of the original story."^[11]

The Observer wrote that it "is raucous, leering, crude and, to my mind, largely misjudged, with Rupert Everett playing Miss Fritton as a coquettish transvestite with the manners of a Mayfair madam. The attempts to shock us fail, though Cheltenham Ladies College may well be affronted to hear one of its teachers say 'between you and I'. But the preview was packed with girls aged from seven to 14 who found it hilarious, and especially enjoyed Russell Brand."^[12]

Derek Malcolm, in The Evening Standard, wrote: "Structurally, the new movie is a mess, and it doesn't look too convincing either, with cinematography that uses all sorts of old-fashioned dodges to raise a laugh", and "when you look at it again, the old film was not only superior but rather more radical. This St Trinian's looks as if it is aiming at the lowest common denominator, and finding it too often."^[13]

On the film-critics aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, St Trinian's holds a 31% positive rating, with the consensus "Both naughtier and campier than Ronald Searle's original postwar series, this St. Trinian's leans on high jinks instead of performances or witty dialogue."^[14]

Sequel

It was announced at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival that the sequel, The Legend of Fritton's Gold, also directed by Parker and Thompson, would be released in 2009.^[15] Filming began on 6 July 2009,^[16] and on 7 July 2009, it was announced that David Tennant, Sarah Harding and Montserrat Lombard had all signed on to appear in the sequel.^[17]

References

External links

• Official website
• St Trinian's at IMDb
• St Trinian's at AllMovie
• St Trinian's at Rotten Tomatoes
• St Trinian's at Metacritic
• St Trinian's Archived 21 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine at NeoClassics Films Archived 21 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine