Extra Geography, a comedy written by Miriam Battye and directed by Molly Manners, is based on an autobiographical short story by Rose Tremain, inspired by an escapade from her own boarding school days. The film is extremely funny, charming and tremendously well-acted, exploring sex, class, friendship and the encroachment of adulthood. It also refuses the glib happy ending of the traditional coming-of-age movie.
A boarding-school escapade
Newcomers Marni Duggan and Galaxie Clear give cracking performances as Flic and Minna, two year-10 girls and best friends at a private school. They are not outsiders or emo losers; both are good at the brutal sport of lacrosse. Intent on raising their profile in advance of an attempt at Oxbridge, they audition for a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which involves boys from a neighbouring school.
They also capriciously decide that, like Titania and Bottom, they will “fall in love” with the first person they see after removing their blindfolds – this being unmarried geography teacher Miss Delavigne (Alice Englert), whom they wheedle into giving them “extra geography” at her private cabin on school grounds. The title also hints at a bold expansion of their own emotional territory. They are playing with fire.
Class, friendship and heartbreak
The film supplies the laughs, heartbreak and insight that the reviewer felt was missing from Alan Bennett’s The History Boys, although, like that oddly contrived film, this could just as well be happening 10, 20 or even 40 years ago. The terrible injustice of adult life, for which the girls are so impatient, is revealed after the audition in which Minna was terrible and Flic was quite good; it is Minna who gets the lead, perhaps because of her specious blondeness, while Flic is given a humiliating non-speaking part, compounding her unease at being a less well-off “scholarship” girl. As Minna looks like getting off with the insufferable boy playing Oberon, a terrible division begins to open between the girls.
Extra Geography recalls the wit and wisdom of Olivia Wilde’s Booksmart and Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, while Miss Delavigne’s New Zealand origins evoke Peter Jackson’s terrifying Heavenly Creatures. Flic and Minna’s friendship is based on a private language of their own, and viewers must acclimatise to the stylised density of gags and zingers in the dialogue, worthy of Victoria Wood. When this secret world is contaminated by disloyal new alliances, it is very painful, especially for the person who feels left behind.
A poignant coming-of-age tale
The movie leaves it up to the audience to decide if everything Flic and Minna do is just a diversion from the real thing: namely, their obvious feelings for each other. Or it is that their intense intimacy is immature and inauthentic, interesting only in that it is poignantly fated to evaporate when real grownup subjects are in play. Students of girl-power movies might sense another echo in the casting of Alice Englert; she starred with Elle Fanning in Sally Potter’s excellent Ginger & Rosa, which had a very similar dynamic. Extra Geography is an extra treat in the movie world’s school timetable, and is in UK and Irish cinemas from 2 October.
