Review: The Riot Club
Class warfare underlines the debauchery on extreme display in The Riot Club, the film adaptation of Laura Wade's hit play Posh. Centering on the fictional undergraduate society and its annual dinner, the film purports to examine the poison of entitlement running through the veins of the privileged few.
Indeed, much is made of legacy and lineage in the hallowed halls of Oxford University as the latest school term commences. Education and heritage are key to attaining membership in the elite posse, though a certain X factor - the capacity to be a legend - can also be taken into consideration. That certain something marks Miles (Max Irons) as a viable nominee into the club, though his middle-class stature and more liberal acceptance of the lower classes (as evidenced by his relationship with "bootstrapper" Lauren, played by Holliday Grainger) sticks in the craw of the other recruit Alistair (Sam Claflin), whose older brother is famed for "being the best Riot Club president ever." The two undergo the usual humiliations of hazing, including the complete and utter destruction of their rooms.
Miles, who sees his inclusion into the club as a lark, thinks it's mere good fun but Lauren believes otherwise: "These people are not your friends." Interestingly, it's the working-class women that quickly see the malice behind the antics, whether it be scholarship student Lauren, Charlie (Natalie Dormer, dynamic in her few minutes onscreen) the hired escort who refuses to be passed around for their entertainment, or Rachel (Jessica Brown Findlay), the waitress who quickly intuits their contempt and condescension.
Rachel's father Chris (Gordon Brown) has agreed to host the club's annual dinner at his gastropub, completely unaware that the club's costly hijinks have already gotten them banned from other establishments. Chris is grateful for the cash infusion - he still has his daughter's student loans to settle and other pubs have had to shutter due to dwindling business. Little does he know what the tuxedoed young men have in store.
Some may be fascinated by the increasingly out-of-control misbehaving during the pivotal dinner. Booze is imbibed, cocaine is snorted, a traditional ten-bird roast is devoured, and that's only the beginning. Their drunken rowdiness makes them susceptible to darker acts and Alistair is only too willing to wind them up with his relentless routing of the lower classes. "What gives you the right?" Chris asks as he surveys the wreckage, incredulous that their offer to pay for the damages entitles them to behave as they did.
Danish director Lone Scherfig dealt with class aspirations and moral corruption in An Education, the film that catapulted Carey Mulligan to stardom. Scherfig shows a fine grasp for building up the mob mentality and ensuing hooliganism, but there's something lacking in Wade's adaptation. If the intent is to show how base animal instincts are present in, and even fostered by, the upper classes...well, the intention is clearly conveyed with no room for confusion. The problem is there's still 90 minutes left to spare, most of which is occupied with pretty boys being intolerably stupid and silly.
The Riot Club
Directed by: Lone Scherfig
Written by: Laura Wade, adapted from her play Posh
Starring: Max Irons, Sam Claflin, Holliday Grainger, Douglas Booth, Jessica Brown Findlay, Natalie Dormer, Freddie Fox, Tom Hollander, Olly Alexander, Sam Reid, Ben Schnetzer, Gordon Brown
