KEY POINTS:
Ask someone to name a British romantic comedy and it will most likely star Hugh Grant and be produced by Working Title Films: Love Actually, Bridget Jones's Diary, About A Boy, Four Weddings and A Funeral to name a few. There's absolutely nothing wrong with these films - I personally would be devastated if Grant decided to change his one-act routine - but you've got to admit the genre feels a little tired.
A collaboration between directors Sam Mendes (American Beauty) and Tom Hanks, who both take on producing responsibilities, Starter For 10 goes some way to reinvigorating the Brit "rom com". It's a well-written, well-acted, witty and cute coming-of-age story with a superb soundtrack that includes the Cure, Wham!, the Smiths, New Order, Tears For Fears, and Echo and the Bunnymen.
Based on the best-selling novel by David Nicholls, Starter For 10 is also a homage to the 80s, set in 1985, in Margaret Thatcher's economically depressed Britain. For those of us who were around to experience the acid wash jeans, mullets and New Wave music for ourselves, it is a wonderful and cringe-inducing reminder of just how tragic the 80s were.
Brian Jackson (McAvoy) is a working class boy from Essex with a nerdy passion for game show trivia, who makes his mum proud by being accepted into Bristol University and on to the team for the television quiz show University Challenge.
Brian's general knowledge may be excellent, but he's delightfully naive and inexperienced when it comes to women, drugs and life outside his mum's home. When he falls for his gorgeous fellow Challenge team mate Alice (Eve) it's Brian's real life education, rather than his academic one that takes off.
McAvoy's Brian is a likeable nerd, not just because Brian is essentially a nice average guy, but also because he is wonderfully flawed, and makes the same kind of silly mistakes most of us make when we leave school and start new adventures.
Starter For 10 is like a Nick Hornby novel for women. The main protagonist may be a guy, and one that other guys can relate to, but it's the ladies who will fall in love with him. Any doubt as to whether McAvoy could turn this skinny swot into a romantic lead capable of driving this film are quickly put to rest, as he continues to prove he is one of the hottest and most versatile British talents around at the moment.
Cast: James McAvoy, Alice Eve, Rebecca Hall, Benedict Cumberbatch
Director: Tom Vaughan
Running time: 96 mins
Rating: M, violence and sexual references
Screening: Rialto
Verdict: Not wildly original, but good fun with a wicked soundtrack
