The Throwback Tuesday weekly post is a opportunity for me to revisit the good, cheesy, forgotten or essential parts of music, film, tv and books from my childhood, the past few years or the generations/eras/works of art that have influenced my life in some way.
This week, I’m going to be talking about one of my favourite films based on a book I have recently been reading, the film is Starter For 10 based on the novel of the same name by David Nicholls. After writing other successful novels such as One Day, Nicholls has gone on to become well known for good, realistic British stories based around love, comedy and real life and when translated into films they usually star a brilliant cast and a wonderful soundtrack.
I first watched the film around 3 years ago now and I’m not going to lie I watched it for 2 reasons: Benedict Cumberbatch and James McAvoy but I quickly fell in love with the story and the cinematography on offer as well. The story is told from Brian’s perspective, who is played by McAvoy, when he moves from his seaside town where he lives with his mother to Bath where he goes to starting his university journey.
While he is there it follows all the usual things every first year student living away from home will have gone through – house shares, providing for yourself, managing your workload, relationships, parties etc but for Brian there is also another huge part of his life there and that is University Challenge. It was the programme he watched with his father as a child before his dad died and it is something he still clings to so when the opportunity to join the team at university arises he goes for it. From then on it shows the trials, tribulations, mistakes and quite embarrassing romantic escapades of Brian.
It’s a brilliant and very realistic film and having only recently read the book I can say it follows the novel pretty well. The film contains a stellar cast of Britain’s most famous exports before they were very well known including Alice Eve, Rebecca Hall, Catherine Tate, Mark Gatiss, Dominic Cooper, James Corden and more alongside McAvoy and Cumberbatch. Honestly, if you haven’t already seen the film go and check it out with a cast that good you know it’s going to be a great film.
If you haven’t already seen the film then you can check out the trailer below and definitely give the book a read if you can too.
Mixtape Couture 
The book is just as good if you ever get the chance to read that đŸ™‚ x
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