Lord of the Flies (Jack Thorne, BBC One / Netflix, 2026)

    It is a truth universally acknowledged that watching a movie is no substitute for reading its source novel. Having survived high school and college without being asked to read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, I have no grounds to compare this adaptation to the novel itself. I’ll just be discussing it on its own terms. Even though it’s not in the genre of films about school that I’ve been writing about recently, there is still a strong connection in this short series to how school systems socialize their students.

    A common complaint about schooling is that teachers ask questions and students answer them, which seems counterintuitive. Students need to learn, so they should be the ones asking the questions. In the absence of a school setting, what kinds of questions do children have about their world? For the characters in Jack Thorne’s Lord of the Flies, important questions to consider seem to be “What does your daddy do?” “Can my dad beat up your dad?” “You’re British, aren’t you?” and “What do the social ties bound at school mean for friendships and factions outside of the school day?” Only one of these questions is posed in the duration of the series, but the answers to all of them are contested verbally and physically by the children on the island.

    For background purposes, it will be helpful to know that this story is set on a unsettled island in the tropics. The characters are a couple two three dozen school-aged boys. None seems to be over the age of 12, and all are from a public school whose plane has crashed, leaving no adult survivors. 

    Well, the classification of their school is never stated, and the meaning of public school in England is the opposite of what a U.S. resident might have in mind; across the pond, a public school is one open to anyone in the public who can afford its tuition. It’s not a school that is open to all members of the public in a given area. Over time, what England calls public school is more like what the U.S. calls private or prep school. But I digress. 

    A key factor in the socialization of these children is that a few of them are in their school’s choir. The choristers band together immediately upon survival of the crash. Their faction wields enormous power over the others due to its domineering and manipulative leader, Jack. Simon is part of the choir, but is much less respected than Jack because he faints occasionally and is not as ruthlessly interested in pursuing power. The principal quartet of boys is rounded out by Piggy (aka Nicky) and Ralph. Piggy is a chubby orphan who has asthma and wears glasses. Ralph is kind and easygoing and so has the quality of being silently respected as a leader by the entire group. With that kind of dramatis personae, you can see where things will be going from a mile away. Still, how we get there is the enjoyable part of participating in the unfolding of a narrative.

    Maybe enjoyable is the wrong word here. This short series is such a downer. Just because you know where things will end up, it doesn’t take the impact out of seeing the ways they get there. The producers and cinematographers must have known the spiral into violence would be too much to take in scene after scene, so they make use of beautiful shots of the island in between the action. Some of the shots have a deep red tint to them that seems otherworldly. It could just be the hues cast by the sunset and sunrise (or even the many fires the boys light on the island) that give off these colors that seem to be blood-soaked. God, even when we are supposed to feel a reprieve from the tension and violence, we are still seeing red. The shots that are less affected by color filters are breathtaking. I could watch hours of the long overhead shots of the island or even the dolly-tracked, eye-level shots of the island’s trees.

    The conflicts that erupt between those beautiful moments are where the boys attempt to address the questions they won’t learn the answers to in school. Or at least, not directly as part of the curriculum. Aside from their names, one of the first things we learn about the characters is what their dads do for a living. Piggy’s dad is dead, Jack’s does a secretive job he can’t even talk about, and Simon’s and Ralph’s fathers are in the armed services. The mystery of what Jack’s dad actually does (is he a spy?) helps him assume the mantle of leader of the pack. In the absence of finding some other kind of pecking order, the boys are comfortable with the implicit suggestion that what each of their dads does reflects on their own status in the group. Which dad is the toughest or most respected or most qualified is a proxy for their status as boys.

    This message of top-down designation of status is reinforced in the final episode when naval officers rescue the boys. Ralph identifies himself as the group’s chief. The lead officer asks him how the boys are doing and how many of them remain. He’s shocked when Ralph tells him he’s not sure how many boys were originally on the island. “You’re British aren’t you?” is his cutting retort. The idea that the nationality of the boys would engender some kind of order or structure is an unquestioned assumption. It’s simply unacceptable to not have instilled a hierarchy. Through tears, Ralph tells the officer that they’d tried to create a social structure, but it fell apart quickly. There is only the smallest hint of sympathy in the naval staffer’s eyes upon learning this information.

    For Jack and for Simon, whose dads are not present in their lives, even on school breaks, the absence of a loving parent seems to have manifested in different ways. Jack tries his best to “man up” as far as he’s concerned. Simon is less sure that might makes right but also can’t seem to find the courage to challenge Jack. We learn via flashback that Ralph’s dad has tried to share his own love of the hunt with him, but it went sideways. Piggy’s parents are deceased, so he’s raised by his aunt Jeanie and the many other adults that come into her candy shop. 

    What Thorne’s interpretation of Golding’s text may be saying is that young male adolescents’ responses to authoritarian or neglectful parenting will vary. We are meant to sympathize with Piggy, not just because of his derogatory nickname but because of his disabling conditions and his status as an orphan. He is also the most reasonable of the four main boys of the group. Jack’s attitude and actions are repulsive, as is his inability to appear weak in front of others. He forces Simon, Ralph, and Piggy to each “take back” truthful things they’ve said to challenge him in private. He and his crew of choristers survive their time on the island, but at the cost of losing their humanity. Jack may be able to imagine that his father will be impressed with his son’s killer instinct, but the lessons of Simon, Ralph, and Piggy will give him plenty of reason to doubt his received wisdom in the years ahead.

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The Perfect Score (Brian Robbins, MTV Films, 2004)

    Here’s a movie I’m glad I don’t have to watch twice. It’s hardly a movie about school at all. It’s not even a movie mostly about testing. No, the score in the title isn’t just the 1600 on the SAT but the hoped-for result of the heist that takes up most of the plot. The six New Jersey high schoolers are motivated to break into the headquarters of ETS so they can get a copy of the SAT before they need to retake it again. Each has their own reason for wanting to do well on the test. More accurately, each of them needs to do well to get into the college of their choice: Cornell, Maryland, St. John’s, and Brown. Yes, that means two of the characters have no post-secondary ambitions. Scarlett Johannson’s Francesca and Leonardo Nam’s Roy are just along for the ride. The latter because he accidentally overheard friends Kyle and Matty detailing their plan in what they thought was an empty school bathroom. The former is involved because her dad owns the building where ETS has its offices, so she can help the crew get into the facility itself.

    The details of the plot are less germane to my discussion of what this film has to say about teaching and learning. From the start, Roy’s obnoxious voiceover tells us that SAT may stand for “suck ass test” because it’s a source of stress for so many students. It’s the task that stands between hundreds of thousands of high schoolers and their futures and it reduces them to numbers. OK, nothing revolutionary in this commentary. Nothing wrong either. We soon see Kyle and Matty together at work in a package-sorting facility where Kyle explains to Matty (and us) the history of the meaning of the letters in SAT. It was the Scholastic Aptitude Test, then the Scholastic Assessment Test, and now the three letters mean nothing. Again, correct, but not very insightful.

    It’s at this point that the other movie I watched last week provided a helpful context for these teenage testing frustrations. In Valerie Veatch’s recent documentary Ghost in the Machine, the history of measuring intelligence and its close relationship to eugenics are explored in the context of programming generative artificial intelligence systems. When advocates for these systems refer to metrics such as “Ph.D. level intelligence” or even intelligence as a quantity, they are taking for faith the idea that tests such as the SAT are valid measurements. If your only idea of what makes someone intelligent is how well they can do on a multiple-choice test, you are going to have a skewed idea of what it means to learn, let alone to live. I know I’m asking too much for a 2004 movie by MTV Films to go into an exegesis of the eugenicist underpinnings of so much of schooling in the United States. What would be cool is an update of The Perfect Score that explores these ideas and the purpose of education itself.

    But I digress.

    Kyle proves to be fairly critical of the political economy of the SAT when he says “the College Board made millions last year” in fees from students taking the test. He seems to be angry that someone is making money from the process and that he didn’t think of that idea first. He appears less annoyed about what that means for access to post-secondary education for families that are facing financial hardship. He’s also frustrated that his mom, a first-grade teacher, tells him that the kids in her class have to learn to “bubble in” on worksheets rather than spend time reading. Again, there’s the beginning of what could be a fruitful critique of what counts as literacy learning in the early elementary years. I doubt anyone involved in this film is familiar with Bond and Dykstra’s First-Grade Studies.

    Additional critiques of the test appear courtesy of Erika Christensen’s Emma and then-NBA player Darius Miles’ Desmond. When we first see these two interact, he asks her for help studying. She mentions to him the concept of stereotype vulnerability as a possible explanation for why he may be underperforming on the test. This comment makes her reconsider her initial doubts about helping him. Shortly after, there is a scene where each conspirer explains their motivation for taking part in the heist, Desmond says “I’m here because the SAT is racist.” He elaborates, “Who made the test? Rich white guys. Who scored the highest on the test?” Roy’s witty reply is about another stereotype about who is successful on the test. Deflating Desmond’s criticism with a joke prevents this line of inquiry from going further. Look, I know it wouldn’t be an interesting movie if they sat and had a discussion about why standardized tests exist, but I also don’t think making a heist movie about stealing test answers was super interesting to begin with!

    At least they all seem to learn that cheating is not going to get them what they want. Not because of some kind of moral awakening but because they realize they can get a decent score instead of a perfect score on their SAT and still go on living. The “right school” is the one you get into, even if it’s not your top choice. Quite a wholesome message from a movie with crude sexual stereotypes and trite stoner jokes. I see no reason to watch this again, but I’m glad I saw it at least once. If nothing else, the real-life circumstances of Darius Miles (prep-to-pro basketball star who signed a letter of intent with St. John's) and Mike Jarvis (the actual St. John’s coach who makes a cameo and was fired from that job a month before the movie came out) give the events of the movie weightier implications. There is too much riding on the results of this test, especially for those whose futures or careers depend on teenagers being successful at bubbling in.

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Afterlove EP (Pikselnesia / Fellow Traveler, 2025)

    It’s quite strange to think about a video game character going to therapy. Less so in a text-driven role-playing game, I suppose. Still less strange if the role played is of a young man grieving the simultaneous end of a life and the loss of a relationship. That’s the situation Rama, protagonist of Pikselnesia’s Afterlove EP, finds himself in as the game begins. As Rama, you have to get the band back together and try to write songs for an EP that’ll be released at a gig at the end of the month. The narrative picks up one year after his girlfriend Cinta’s unexpected death from an unspecified health complication.

    In grief, Rama has coped by having Cinta’s voice in his head at all times. It may not be just her voice actually. Her words are vivid enough for Rama that he can hold one-on-one conversations with her. Other characters cannot hear Cinta’s voice, so Rama’s sudden comments or replies seem a little out of the blue when he’s trying to have an in-person conversation with friends and also managing an internal dialogue with Cinta. They’ll call him out on it, but he remains oblivious to his condition. 

    All of the conversations with these characters happen through on-screen text. Cinta is the only character whose text is supplemented with voice acting. You are essentially getting to hear the voice in Rama’s head as he grieves his loss. This choice is very effective in drawing the player into Rama’s perspective while also not completely sharing it. As a player, you’re aware of the conversation Cinta and Rama are having even as Rama discusses other topics with whoever is with him in real life. You can sense the confusion he’s feeling and may even share the frustration of his friends when they cannot parse his seemingly random contributions to their discussions.

    Two of those friends, Adit and Tasya, play with him in the incredibly named SIGMUND FEUD. Their three-piece approach to slacker-y, pop-leaning shoegaze is soundtracked by L’ALPHALPHA, an actual band from Jakarta, Indonesia. Rama’s the principal songwriter and lyricist, so his lost year of catatonic depression has made it difficult for the band to continue. Practices are tense and both Tasya and Adit question their own interest in continuing the band beyond the scheduled gig at the end of the month. Even if the band members aren’t getting along super well, it’s still fun to practice with them. There’s a light rhythm game element to working through songs in the practice space or going over them alone in your room. Thankfully, there are no consequences for missing notes. Had there been, I think Tasya would have threatened to quit even earlier than she did in the plot!

    Most of your days as Rama are spent shuffling around Jakarta. You’re a minor celebrity, so you will get rockignized when you stop by the cafe, record store, ramen shop, or therapist’s office. The locations are spread out enough that you will occasionally make use of fast travel (via your phone’s map app; if only real life were so simple!), but it is relaxing to walk around the neighborhood and check in on the regulars who are waiting for their bus or trying to get up the courage to ask out their crush. You will also have a chance to try your hand at romance with one of three possible partners. I was either so devoted to being a good band member or was just as oblivious as Rama that I didn’t end up in a relationship at the end of the game. I guess the Rama I was playing was still carrying a torch for Cinta. Something about playing a noncommittal slacker in his 20s must have really hit home for me.

    Unlike mid-20s me, Rama understands the value of therapy. In his sessions, he works to understand why he is still able to have conversations with Cinta and also how those conversations might be getting in the way of his continued growth. These sessions are entirely optional, though the game gives you reminders to check in with your therapist every few days. One of my favorite minor characters is the receptionist in the office who brings up her Christian metal fandom repeatedly. It would have been hilarious if Rama could recruit her to join his band and completely alienate Adit and Tasya into quitting music entirely. He’s already speaking aloud to the voices in his head, so it’s easy to imagine a new version of SIGMUND FEUD that involves Rama speaking in tongues over some ripping thrash riffs while the demure receptionist hammers blast beats for Jesus. Maybe that’ll be the sequel—the Afterlife EP. 

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Dead Poets Society (Peter Weir, Touchstone Pictures, 1989)

    Now here is a movie about education or based in a school that stands firmly on its own as a film. There is so much to praise and discuss with Dead Poets Society that I will not be covering in this post. I’ll be focusing on what comes to mind in terms of how Mr. Keating and his students interact as a community of learners.

    It’s so wonderful to see a movie dedicated to the full-throated support of the humanities, specifically poetry. It is earnest in its argument for making the examined life worth living. There is a catch, though. All students deserve this caliber of education. Yet, the opening convocation features the headmaster telling the students and their families that “75 percent” of the young men who attend Welton will eventually enroll in an Ivy League institution. That’s remarkable and is also a reminder that this is fiction. The implication is that the curriculum is so robust that these boys cannot fail. Less evident is whether this elite prep school is the kind of place where the old-monied or legacy-admitted may send their kids in the first place. Getting to the why behind that statement could make for an equally interesting, but also much less inspiring, film. A deeply cynical look at the kind of students and families involved in the Varsity Blues scandal could be a modern take on that idea.

    Robin Williams as John Keating is magnetic and magnificent. I have had teachers whose unorthodox methods must have been inspired by Keating’s approach. As a viewer, it’s easy to be taken in by the gimmicks he uses and then draw the conclusion that all teaching should be like that. Jumping off desks, marching through the courtyard, tearing pages from textbooks, inspiring clandestine poetry recitals… these are not pedagogical models just because of their shape. Keating has an evident, deep love for the written word and observation. He’s also seen enough of the world to know what these boys haven’t, and he knows how to play with that gap in their experience constructively. It’s certainly dramatic and attention getting to ask students to climb on their desks to get a new view of the world, or to offer a muscular repudiation of staid interpretations of poetry. The motions themselves are incidental, even though they make for exciting on-screen action.

    The film’s iconic final scene reveals that it wasn’t the mere appreciation of poetry that he was teaching. He was showing the way for these 17-year-olds to avoid the narrow, gilded path their parents and society forced them down. To have these genteel, patrician sons understand that there is a life outside of being a banker, lawyer, or doctor is a huge undertaking. Keating opens their eyes to the idea that there is a conflict between conformity and integrity that they have to resolve. He never tells them to take "the path less traveled by" but that they should know it exists and make an informed choice about where to go.

    Neil Perry’s pathetic complaint “can’t I even enjoy it for a little while?” is revelatory in this regard. He says these words in response to his roommate’s quick emphasis on the logistics involved in concealing his participation in a local performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In this scene, Anderson doesn’t see the point in Neil honoring his own interest in acting; all he can consider is how pissed Perry’s old man will be when he finds out. Perry is rightfully upset with Anderson’s response because he did not need another reminder of how constrained his choices are. It’s always on his mind. Keating showed him a looser way of looking at the world and it’s not the way he thought it had been. Perry is unable to escape the conformity and authority of his father’s dreams.

    Anderson and the others who stand for their captain in the final scene do so not because they love poetry or the written word or because they hate their replacement teacher. Those who move do so because they know there is a world out there larger than the one they’ve known until this point. They are acknowledging the lesson of needing a different view on the world that Keating had taught them earlier. They love him for how he opened their minds.

    Although there are boys of various ages at Welton, it’s not clear whether Keating or the other teachers are responsible for all grade levels with their subject. We never see Keating teaching other classes nor is there evidence of younger students having reading, writing, literature, or English classes. This situation raises the question of whether Keating has only one prep. If so, then that is one hell of a position. What little we know of his life outside the classroom is that he has a love interest who is in London and that he has taught similar courses in England before coming to Welton. It would be nice to know whether he has only this one class because that information could explain his teaching methods. If he has all day to plan, then it makes sense that he would come up with some out of the box ideas and that he would have the patience to adjust them when they do not work the first time. As before, all students (not just those in cloistered academies) deserve teachers who can give this much time and attention to their subject and their students.

    It’s worth noting that the only women and girls in the movie have extremely minor roles. The few times we see the students’ parents, their mothers are simply appendages of their fathers. The domineering Mr. Perry has hundreds more words that Mrs. Perry. The boys’ love interests are similarly one-dimensional. The boys have three girls who are peers and they exist solely as subjects of arousal. Even Keating argues that the purpose of language is to “woo women.” If that’s what he has to say about gender roles, I’m terrified of how he would explain the whiteness of Welton. He graduated from the institution, so he may be unable to see its whiteness as problematic. The fish is the last to notice the water and all that. It’s far too generous of an interpretation of the film to think that it does not directly say anything about gender or race because it is attempting to show just how sheltered the lives of these people are.

    That’s the one thought that bugs me still about this otherwise extraordinary film. No one text can do everything, so maybe I’m expecting too much of a movie from 1989 to have thoughtful commentary on race and gender in addition to its convincing argument in support of a liberal arts education. The tensions of social class are readily apparent in the characters’ interactions with the local public high schoolers and with Mr. Perry’s repeated comments about the sacrifices he has made to get Neil into Welton. It’s entirely possible that there is nothing interesting to say about the maleness or whiteness of Welton: it is white and masculine because that is its raison d’être. The exclusion is the point.

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