St Trinian's graduates lead the way
Anne Billson hails the graduates of the St Trinian's films, the most exciting generation of young female acting talent since the 1970s.
8:00AM BST 28 Jul 2013
13 CommentsMichael Winterbottom's The Look of Love, which focused on the life and times of Soho sleaze baron Paul Raymond, might have opened to mixed reviews, but there was one surprising positive to emerge from a film about a pornographer: Steve Coogan's central performance is nicely balanced by three unexpectedly strong female characters.
Anna Friel is the business as Raymond's first wife, the excellent Imogen Poots plays his doomed daughter Debbie, and – for me the revelation – cheerful, leggy Tamsin Egerton is a hoot as the legendary red-headed Fiona Richmond: great British pin-up, Men Only columnist and star of Let's Get Laid.
Egerton, formerly known as Tamsin Egerton-Dick, is a graduate of the class of '07 – the St. Trinian's reboot. Unsurprisingly, neither it nor its sequel, St. Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold, found favour with critics (films aimed at girls rarely do, though Telegraph reviewers enjoyed them) but they are exemplary displays of girl power. If I had a daughter I would rather she watch St. Trinian's – in which schoolgirls learn useful skills such as hacking, confidence trickery and self-defence, and which passes the Bechdel Test with flying colours – than Twilight, which encourages them to give up friends, family and further education for their boyfriends. (The Bechdel Test, in case you were unaware, was devised by the American cartoonist Alison Bechdel. To pass it, a work of fiction must contain at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man.)
The films are also showcases for an intriguing new generation of female acting talent, not all as mega-famous as Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan, but born like them in the 1980s and now hitting their prime. They all have posh names, some went to posh schools, but unlike their male counterparts, they're not all posh. They're just as talented as the Henry Cavills and Tom Hiddlestons of this world, but less celebrated in the media, perhaps because there's a shortage of roles for women in superhero movies, the one genre guaranteed to raise a performer's profile these days. So let's celebrate them now.
Tamsin Egerton, 24
As leader of the St. Trinian's "Posh Totty" tribe, Egerton proved she could do blonde and fluffy, and proved it again in Chalet Girl and running amok in New York, wearing little more than knickers, in the most watchable segment of Noel Clarke and Mark Davis' wildly uneven 4.3.2.1., but The Look of Love showed she can infuse girly roles with spark and dignity. She was wasted as Guinevere in the leaden Starz cable series Camelot; Egerton has legs as long as Cyd Charisse's, and is a comedienne to be treasured. In a perfect world, we'd see her using the martial arts she learnt at school in a screwball action-comedy.
Gemma Arterton, 27
Presiding over the Class of '07 like a sexy young godmother is Gemma Arterton, daughter of a welder and a cleaner, who made her film debut as black-bobbed Kelly Jones, the St. Trinian's head girl with secret agent skills. She went on to star in Tess of the D'Urbervilles for the BBC, got coated in oil in the best scene in the worst Bond film ever (Quantum of Solace) and emerged unscathed from a high-profile flop (The Boat That Rocked) sufficiently famous to merit coveted last billing status in the opening credits of St. Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold.
Arterton, who won Empire's Best Newcomer award in 2009, has a lovely throaty voice, and a spunky presence that serves her well in effects-laden fantasy blockbusters, so it's not her fault Clash of the Titans, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters were all sub-par. But she was prefectly cast as Tamara Drewe, ferocious as a buxotic vampire mother in Byzantium and sensationally good in the demanding role of a kidnap victim in the low-budget three-hander The Disappearance of Alice Creed – not just stripped and tied to a bed but taking the tricky emotional swerves of the story in her stride.
Juno Temple, 24
Temple, daughter of director Julien Temple and producer Amanda Pirie, had already notched up supporting roles in Notes on a Scandal and Atonement by the time she played egghead Celia in St Trinian's. She's had roles in blockbusters like The Three Musketeers and The Dark Knight Rises, but what really made everyone sit up and take notice were her performances as part of the sexy young ensemble cast of Gregg Araki's candy-coloured apocalypse romp Kaboom, and as Texan trailer trash taken as collateral by Matthew McConaughey in Killer Joe. She wonBafta's Rising Star Award earlier this year, and like other graduates of St. Trinian's, seems to have an enviable knack of turning potentially exploitative roles on their head, emerging very much in control.
Tuppence Middleton, 26
Middleton, who shares her first name with an Agatha Christie heroine, didn't appear in the St. Trinian's films, but was memorable as the headgirl who isn't as nice as she thinks she is at the haunted school setting in the supernatural slasher movie Tormented. Like her contemporaries Imogen Poots and Ophelia Lovibond, she bounced back from the execrable cyber-thriller Chatroom, and was very good indeed as the poor little rich girl with an identity crisis in Iain Softley's psychokiller Trap for Cinderella, co-starring Alexandra Roach, another name to watch after her eye-catching turn in Channel 4's Utopia.
Tuppence Middleton in Tormented (Snap Stills/Rex Features)
Imogen Poots, 24
Poots, meanwhile, attended the same creepy 1930s girls' boarding school as Juno Temple in the flawed but interesting 2009 psychodrama Cracks, directed by Jordan Scott, Ridley's daughter. Poots played the girlfriend in the Fright Night remake, but was terrific in both The Look of Love and A Late Quartet, where she more than held her own against old hands Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener and Christopher Walken.
Ophelia Lovibond, 27
Lovibond has been bubbling under for some time, appearing in 4.3.2.1. with Egerton, playing supporting roles in Nowhere Boy, London Boulevard and No Strings Attached, but was at her most adorable as an assistant with a peculiar verbal tic in the Jim Carrey comedy Mr Popper's Penguins.
In a proper film-making nation, this would surely be hailed the most exciting generation of young female acting talent since the 1970s-born class of Kate Winslet, Rachel Weisz, Lena Headey and Thandie Newton. These are not your average bland starlets – they're individual and versatile, with a knack for accents. The only thing holding them back is the scarcity of British films with female leads, so little wonder there's a young female British invasion of Los Angeles already underway. Let's just hope they don't end up in boring girlfriend roles. They deserve better.
The Look of Love is out on DVD in the UK on August 19
