CLASS ACT (MY OLD SCHOOL)
Jono McLeod's 'My Old School' has been entered for next year's Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars.
If it doesn't make the final shortlist, as most pundits suspect, that will be a huge disappointment.
The Dogwoof, Magnolia Pictures, Hopscotch Films and Creative Scotland documentary feature brilliantly takes a real life tale and uses live action, animation, archive footage and talking heads to tell its story with warmth, wit and vigour.
'My Old School' resurrects a story from the 1990s that many people will have forgotten.
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© Magnolia Pictures, DogwoofIt focuses on Brandon Lee, a pupil who was admitted to Bearsden Academy in Glasgow in 1993, fresh from arriving in Scotland from Canada.
His mum was supposedly an opera singer who died in a car crash and he claimed his father was a professor who had little to do with him.
Apart from sharing his name with the son of Bruce Lee, who lost his life on a film set while making 'The Crow,' Brandon lived at his granny's.
Looking a little more advanced for his age than his fellow classmates, Brandon dazzled teachers and pupils with his intelligence and his sophistication.
He came to Bearsden in the hope of landing a place at a medical school and went on to achieve that goal at Dundee University.
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© Magnolia Pictures, DogwoofBrandon also landed a lead role in a school production of 'South Pacific' and befriended students on the margins of the school, studying with them in his home and helping them gain some credibility as his own street cred grew.
However it was all a massive deception.
Brandon was not Brandon.
He wasn't Canadian.
He wasn't even 16. He was 32.
© Magnolia Pictures, DogwoofHis mum wasn't an opera singer.
Nor was his father an academic.
And when his deception was revealed, the story hit the headlines in Scotland, then across the UK and Ireland.
Director Jono McLeod was a fellow pupil at Bearsden Academy at the time.
In 'My Old School,' he interviews former classmates and teachers, building his documentary around their recollections of Bearsden Academy, Glasgow and a teenager who wasn't actually a teenager.
© Magnolia Pictures, Dogwoof"Brandon" consents to being interviewed too but on the proviso that he doesn't appear on camera.
So in a genius move, McLeod casts the Scottish actor Alan Cumming to lip synch his words a la Clio Barnard's groundbreaking documentary 'The Arbor' about the playwright Andrea Dunbar.
Cumming had originally been lined up to play Brandon Lee in a movie until plans for it fell through.
He takes on the lip synch role with relish and once you get past the initial artifice of Cumming lip synching, you soon get used to him pretending to be Lee.
What emerges is a wonderfully playful documentary that trades on the natural humour of its interviewees while McLeod gently probes the mythologu around Brandon Lee.
© Magnolia Pictures, DogwoofThe contributors reflect on their encounters with Brandon with great fondness and typical self-deprecating Glaswegian humour.
They also provide some remarkable insight into how the school could have fallen for his deception, while poking fun at their hometown.
The former students humourously speculate Brandon had some capacity for Jedi mind control that enabled him to charm teachers and pupils and secure a place in the school.
The headmaster's nickname, we are told, was Batman but there were many colourful characters on the staff.
Bearsden is also described as a posh part of Glasgow where doctors, lawyers and "really corrupt accountants" live.
© Magnolia Pictures, DogwoofWe are told Brandon lived on the fringes of Bearsden where the well to do neighbourhood gave way to more modest housing.
One of the contributors is shocked to learn from a former classmate that the neighbourhood he lived in was known as "Spam Valley" because it was rumoured the families living there had to eat spam for a week to afford their mortgages.
In addition to Cumming, McLeod also recruits Lulu, Claire Grogan, Dawn Steele, Joe McFadden and Gary Lamont to voice characters in 'Daria'-style animated school sequences created by Rory Lowe, Martha MacDiarmid and Scott Morriss.
Lulu is particularly funny as the quirky teacher Mrs Harris who helps run the school.
Ultimately, though, it is McLeod's old teachers and classmates who dominate the film - giggling as they recall their school days and their rather unusual, high achieving fellow pupil.
© Magnolia Pictures, DogwoofHowever it is not all light fare.
Video of a school production of 'South Pacific' which Brandon starred in not only shows how memories don't always match reality but strikes a very uncomfortable note in what is otherwise a very bright and breezy documentary.
Other pupils credit Brandon, though, for helping them get over their marginalisation, shape their musical tastes and embark on a successful path of study that uktimately led to their careers.
The circumstances behind his deception also appear to be quite tragic - although you are never quite sure if Brandon is exaggerating the story when he is being interviewed, given his propensity for creating myth.
Those who have been through the British system of secondary lev education will recognise many of the quirks of Bearsden Academy in the documentary.
Those who went to school in the 1990s will particularly enjoy a soundtrack that features 2 Unlimited and a version of 'The Macarena'.
Lulu also contributes a cover version of Steely Dan's 'My Old School' and Cumming performs a delightfully ironic version of 'Younger Than Springtime' from 'South Pacific'.
There's a delightful spoof too of the opening credits of the BBC children's TV soap 'Grange Hill' which many British viewers will find amusing.
In a genre dominated by serious tales, few documentary features tackle their subjects with the warmth and wit of McLeod's feature.
'My Old School' is a real joy to watch.
It delivers its laughs with real guile and also leaves you wondering what Lee and McLeod will do next.
('My Old School' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on August 19, 2022)
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