The Riot Club
Dir: Lone Scherfig
2014
****
Lone Scherfig's film adaptation of Laura Wade's play Posh, is brilliantly written, very well acted, perfectly directed and has a fantastic script. It is also a very hard film to enjoy. The subject matter; a group of (no more than 10 at a time) young and privileged post-graduate Oxford students seek their places in the notorious Riot Club, a society born hundreds of years before at the University, that celebrates hedonism and the belief that money can buy anything, is so provocative it will make your skin crawl. This isn't a satire and it's certainly no 'Decline and Fall', it is a far more realistic version of the very real Bullingdon Club that lives under many of the same principles. The club rules, indeed most members have gone onto high positions in society, at the time the film was released three of it's former members (although you are always a member) are high ranking politicians - one being Prime minister. Money isn't really the problem here and power is subjective, the real hard to watch element is the audacity, the arrogance and the vile idea of entitlement. It's a brilliant film but it is so hard to watch as it will make your blood boil, no less so when you realise that this sort of thing has happened, is happening and will continue to do so. Lone Scherfig seems to have gone back to the 'poking the bear with a stick' attitude of the Dogme movement which is nice to see, the acting is painfully real and the script is one of the best of the year, with many a great line uttered.