Spud

Synopsis: John Milton (Troye Sivan) is in his first year at a private boy’s boarding school in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. Arriving from a humble but eccentric family, he is initiated into this fierce and frightening world with the unappealing nickname of Spud. Despite a number of hurdles, Spud begins to make unexpected friends and allegiances. He soon learns to embrace the excitement and messiness of life, love, death and politics.

With Spud, Donovan Marsh has created a sensitive and thoughtful account of the quirks and contradictions of becoming a “real” man in an alpha-male environment. If you’ve ever inherited a nickname that you hated but grew to accept over time then you’ll have no trouble identifying with Spud. Spud is clever, perceptive and pubescently uncoordinated. He is terrible at sports but a great writer and reader and has a voice like an angel. Surrounded by boys who constantly chivvy one another by dunking their “friends'” heads in toilet bowls or shoe polishing their testicles, Spud finds solace in Gecko (Jamie Royal) and the insightful teacher, “Guv” (John Cleese). While he and Gecko lust after girls with the same passionate fervour as their hot-headed counterparts, Rambo and Mad Dog; Spud and the Guv bond over life stories, both real and imagined. Confused, compassionate and caring, Spud is every thinking teenager’s alter ego.

The performances are strong with Troye Sivan inhabiting his innocent but astute character with warmth and zest. John Cleese is also great as “The Guv,” Spud’s affable alcoholic teacher, who has an acerbic wit and deep affection for literature. Julie Summers and Aaron McIlroy complete the picture as Spud’s wonderfully endearing but mad parents. The film is well shot and edited with the narrative moving along at a decent pace. Voice-over is used sparingly and acts only to enhance a self-deprecating humour. There are plenty of entertaining sequences in which Spud finds himself in one of those hideously uncomfortable and humiliating adolescent situations. I couldn’t help but laugh at most of them despite their predictability. We’ve all been there, we all know what it’s like to swing a cricket bat and hit the wickets not the ball.

Whilst Spud isn’t groundbreaking it is whole-heartedly entertaining and there is a nice tie-in to the state of South Africa of the time with small references to the changing nature of black/white relations, the release of Nelson Mandela and the end of apartheid.

 

 

Want more about this film?

    

Want something different?