"Coming of Age in Bristol"
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What You Need To Know:
STARTER FOR 10 is very well produced and tells a compelling, well-acted coming-of-age story of a boy leaving his non-college bound friends, making new friends, and struggling to adjust to life at a major university. Sadly, it is loaded with objectionable elements. From cross-dressing homosexual roommates to drug use and too much alcohol use, the movie takes viewers through Brian’s trials with little concern for morality or God. It conveys the message “don’t quit," but even this is not rooted in the concept that we are accountable to God for our behavior, or that God can forgive sin. Thus, MOVIEGUIDE® cannot recommend STARTER FOR 10 because of language, sex, nudity, drugs, alcohol, cheating, and the predominantly pagan worldview of its characters.
Content:
(PaPa, PC, Ho, LL, V, SS, N, A, DD, MM) Predominantly pagan worldview with little concern for morality, some politically correct liberal content regarding an activist character and some homosexual references with cross-dressing roommates; 12 obscenities and one profanity; short fight where a young man gets black eye; strong sexual content includes cross-dressing homosexual roommates, young man comes home to find his mother in the bubble bath with a strange man, and fornication implied but not shown; young man visiting friend when her mother and father enter the room naked, with upper male and back upper female nudity shown in scene; too much alcohol use, but no drunkenness; marijuana use; and, dishonesty and cheating.
More Detail:
STARTER FOR 10 features James McAvoy as Brian Jackson, a likable young man from an ordinary family who gets accepted to prestigious Bristol University in the 1980s with dreams of being on their University Challenge team (a TV quiz show in England). The first series of questions in the game are starter questions worth ten points each. Brian grew up watching the game and impressing his parents with his ability to get the right answers before the contestants.
Five people try out for four places on the team, but Brian is not accepted, only because he gave some correct answers to a gorgeous blond competitor, Alice (Alice Harbinson), who wants to parlay the television appearances into a film or television career. When one of the four accepted is injured in a car accident, Brian joins the team and proceeds to show he is star quality material. Though less than rich and handsome, he strikes up a relationship with Alice and gets invited to visit her and her parents over the Christmas holiday.
Brian also befriends a more ordinary looking Jewish activist named Rebecca (Rebecca Hall). She passes out pamphlets, attends rallies for almost every liberal cause and has a wry sense of humor.
STARTER FOR 10 is very well produced and tells a compelling coming-of-age story of a boy leaving his non-college bound friends, making new friends and struggling to adjust to life at a major university. Sadly, it is loaded with objectionable elements. From cross-dressing homosexual roommates to uncondemned drug and too much alcohol use, the story takes viewers through Brian’s trials with little concern for morality, God or Jesus. It conveys the message “don’t quit,” but even this is not rooted in the concept that we are accountable to God for our behavior, or that God forgives sin.
Brian’s father died while he was young, and Brian he carries a picture of his dad with him. Throughout the movie, viewers may get the impression that he wishes to make his father proud of his achievements in the University Challenge. It’s a shame he is not out to make his Heavenly Father proud of his behavior in and outside the game show.
In one scene, Brian sits at Alice’s kitchen table when her mother comes in naked to look in the refrigerator. Brian attempts to crack a joke based on a line from the movie THE GRADUATE, but Alice’s mother, and then her naked father as well, do not get the joke. While the nudity is not graphic, using nudity for humor is usually not appropriate.
MOVIEGUIDE® cannot recommend STARTER FOR 10 because of language, sex, nudity, drugs, alcohol, cheating, and the predominantly pagan worldview of its characters.