Privileged

'Privileged', the first theatrical release from the Oxford Film Foundation is probably most notable for having the dubious honour of being Hugh - or 'Hughie' as the credits would have it - Grant's screen debut. Essentially a student project the film follows a group of Oxford undergraduates as they move from party to party and hop from bed to bed. A vague 'whodunnit' subplot is in the mix too, that is if you can have a 'subplot' in such a formless narrative. The whole thing comes across as a very dated in-joke which might have been a wheeze to make but is actually quite hellish to sit through twenty years later. Some fun can be had spotting now familiar faces among the cast. These include Imogen Stubbs and (an actually very good) Mark Williams, familiar to British TV views from his work on The Fast Show. The show stealing performance however is from Ted Colman as the mysterious 'Barman'. One can't help but wish that his character would have had a little more screen time as only when he appears does the film truly come alive.

I must have seen this film hundreds of times since its first release and, doubtless, I'll watch it hundreds more. Hugh Grant has probably never done anything with the same level of quality since. He shows an incredible range in this film, going from pompous twit to privileged upperclass yahoo, sometimes in the course of one scene. But even with an actor of his stature the film is stolen completely by some of the supporting cast members notably Mark Saban who is simply a joy to watch, especially when he appears in the background of a shot 'doing acting'. The other find of this film is Ted Colman as the 'barman' of Brown's restaurant. Colman is incredible, he's funny, tragic and charismatic in every scene that he appears in. Whatever happened to this guy? I've seen him in this and a couple of low budget Dutch action films and that's all. My copy of Privileged is wearing out, I've viewed it so often. It's a crime there has never been a DVD release in any region, I'm sure the movie's many fans would make it a hit. A two disc set, with commentary from Saban and Colman detailing their very different acting techniques would be very welcome. I strongly recommend anyone to see this film, especially Ted Colman fans. It's original, classy and a total one off.