The Riot Club -- CALL discussion notes

     Two Oxford freshmen join The Riot Club, a 10-man fraternity of privileged hedonists (aka drunk druggies). Alistair is a snob aspiring to match his (ugh) Tory MP uncle. Miles also has aristocratic connections but is more down to earth, comfortable with his new regional girlfriend Lauren. Barred from Oxford pubs for their destructive rowdiness they move their annual dinner to ambitious landlord Chris’s rural pub. When Charlie, a hired prostitute, declines their group sex job they proposition and humiliate Lauren. Angry, drunk and drugged, the lads trash the room. When Chris intervenes Alistair beats him so savagely he’s hospitalized. Believing the club is more important than the individual, the boys decide not to reveal what happened, then to require the newest member Miles to assume all the blame. But from DNA evidence the police charge Alistair, who though expelled has his career and future assured by the Riot Club members present and past. 

Consider some of these questions:

1. The Empire in ruins, why should we be interested in the party life of some snotty Brit undergrads? 
2. Compare the arcs of the virtuous Miles and initially sympathetic Alistair. Why is the latter more prominent in the narrative frame?
3. What evidence is there of this film’s beginning as a play? What does its opening out reveal?
4. What’s the effect of changing the title from the play, Posh, to The Riot Club? Does it evoke the American David Fincher’s Fight Club?
5. Miles is played by Max Irons, son of Jeremy and Sinead Cusack, grandson of Cyril Cusack. Who cares?
6. The director is the well-known Danish director of Italian for Beginners, An Education and One Day. Any connections? e.g., in An Education 16-year old Jenny’s father directs her every attention into qualifying for Oxford, which leads to a problematic relationship with an older man (who pretends to be only a culture vulture). One Day follows the annual reunion of two young people who’d spent their grad night together. In Italian for Beginners several provincial solitaries use an Italian course to find love. How is Ms Scherfig an auteur? 
7. Does this British film reflect anything of the current Danish cinema?
8. How might this film address Britain’s current national election? Canada’s? 
9. What’s the point of the characters’ names?
10. Isn’t subordinating the individual’s interest to the group’s supposedly a good thing? 
11. Why does the film open on the historic period of the club’r origin?
12. What’s the effect of the last scene? The club’s powerful alumnus says “We don’t make mistakes,” then Alistair walks out, past a group singing “Oh Come all ye Faithful,” and smiles. 
13. What’s the function of the pub-owner’s daughter? How does she compare/contrast to Lauren?  
14. List the various kinds of snobbery here.
15. What does the nine-bird bird signify? (It was to have been 10).
16. Does it matter that the club was founded to honour a nobleman named Ryot?
17. How does the pub owner’s characterization relate to the lads?
18. What's the thematic function of the two boys' fathers? The club alumni?
19. What are the implications of Alistair's older brother preferring a career running a hamburger truck? 

Consider the following dialogue:

1. Alistair: I’m sick to fucking death... of poor people.

2. Mugger: Just put in the PIN number and take out 200.

    Alistair Ryle: [after a long pause] It's actually just PIN. The 'N' stands for number, it's Personal Identification Number. So, if you say "Pin Number" you're saying "number" twice. You're saying "Personal Identification Number Number".

[chuckles]

Alistair Ryle: It's just wrong.

3.George Balfour: Back to the trenches boys.

4.Harry Villiers: I'm just bringing the sexy back.

5.Harry Villiers: So we're at the top university in the world

    Alistair: Arguably

7. Charlie: I'm really sorry, I don't do more than two visits in a row without a break, so...

Alistair Ryle: What break do you need, if you're just lying there?

Charlie: I'm not just a live version of the sock you wank into.

8.Guy Bellingfield: Excuse me, I'm in charge here!

9. Are you posh?

10. This is our last chance to disport ourselves without everyone watching us.

11. Lauren: You were there. And you did nothing.

12. We have to stop apologizing for what we are.

13. We have the right to get what we want.

14. I’m done with societies. I’ll have nothing more to do with them.

15. Let’s not spend our three years avoiding the shag we had in freshies week.