Scarborough is a small British film but it will give you a very big headache. Its subject is teachers who have relationships with pupils and it’s well directed and well performed — Jodhi May is always worth the price of a ticket whatever — but I’m still trying to work out what it has to say. That these relationships are sometimes OK? That they never are? That we shouldn’t judge? God, I hate cinema when it makes you think. And gives you these big headaches.
The film is based on the play by Fiona Evans, first staged at the Edinburgh festival and then at the Royal Court in London. Adapted by Barnaby Southcombe, who also directs, it is set in Scarborough over one weekend and cross cuts between a female teacher, Liz (May), and her pupil, Daz (Jordan Bolger), and a male teacher, Aiden (Edward Hogg), and his pupil, Beth (Jessica Barden).
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