dir. Ronald Neame
writ. Muriel Spark (novel), Jay Presson Allen (play and screenplay)
feat. Maggie Smith, Robert Stephens, Pamela Franklin, Gordon Jackson, Celia Johnson, Diane Grayson, Jane Carr
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie has all the character and complexity of a woman unabashedly certain that she is in the prime of her life. Jean Brodie (Smith) struts the school grounds, her pride stoked by her effect on men and the girls she not only teaches, but coaches into teenage life. At the height of her charismatic powers, her ego verily bursts from her attractive and well-postured body, rendering her romantic notions about heroic dictators, passion, and art incontestable, her ideology above reproach.
But Jean's ideas about the world were born of her own young experiences of love and loss, then harbored and fueled in the safe haven of the classroom, encouraged by a regularly replenished tribe of adulating girls on the brink of adolescence, all too susceptible to a seemingly worldly mentor professing the importance of love and truth. Over the years, Jean's vague, static utopia grates against reality, and though she feigns preparation for change and the unavoidable results of aging, her purely philosophical defense crumbles quickly and easily when challenged. In the end, it is her narcissism that both creates and destroys Jean Brodie's so-called prime, the time spent protecting and prolonging her perfect self wasted, her ensuing decline calling into questioning the value of every aspect of her character- as a teacher, a leader, a lover, a woman.
Yet even in her departing speech, there is pride and strength in Jean Brodie's voice and plans for the future. This resilience and Jean's qualities, both troubling and admirable, evident in the treacherous former pupil who orchestrates her downfall leaves the viewer with the lingering difficult question of what makes a proper role model.
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