My Old School is a documentary exploring a true story that would have to be true as it’s too preposterous – it is absolutely nuts – for any screenwriter to have made it up.
You know something is up but not what and if you’re coming to it fresh your jaw will hit the floor
It’s the story of Brandon Lee, who was 16 when he enrolled as a new student to a secondary school in the Glasgow area in 1993. Or is it: was this new boy a 16-year-old called Brandon Lee? And now I’m in a pickle. If I say more it’s a spoiler. The film plays its cards close to its chest until the 45-minute mark. You know something is up but not what and if you’re coming to it fresh your jaw will hit the floor. But it was a big media story at the time, so many might remember, plus other reviews haven’t been at all discreet. It’s a dilemma. Tell you what, I’ll keep shtum but in return you have to promise not to Google it, not even indirectly, as that will deliver in spades. This seems a fair deal.
It is written and directed by Jono McLeod, now a filmmaker, who attended the school, Bearsden Academy, at the time, hence My Old School. Over the years, he has said, there have been many plans to turn the story into a film but nothing ever happened so it was a case of, OK, I’ll do it myself. Lee, as I’ll call him, agreed to an interview but with the proviso that he didn’t appear on screen so his voice is lip-synced, seamlessly, by Alan Cumming. Elsewhere, McLeod interviews his former teachers and his former classmates as they remember (and also misremember), while flashbacks to their schooldays are shown in jolly, brightly coloured animations voiced by the likes of Clare Grogan and, for some reason, Lulu.
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