Joyce Glasser reviews My Old School (August 19, 2022) Cert 15, 104 mins.
The title sounds nostalgic, and just who is the “possessor” in the “my” is unclear, for both the director, Jono McLeod and so-called Brandon Lee, whose verbal testimony is the first person narration, went to the same school. Though the tragicomedy of Brandon Lee reflects a universal desire to relive one’s youth, the story is more unsettling and disturbing than nostalgic.
Be forewarned, if you don’t know the story: there are inevitable spoilers in this review. One thing that isn’t a spoiler, but is made clear up front, is that the real “Brandon Lee” agreed to speak but would not appear in the film. So actor Alan Cummings lip-syncs Lee’s words, which is not the shortcoming you might expect. While there is nothing “masklike” about Cummings’ face, as there apparently was about Lee’s, Lee’s physical absence sustains the chameleon and uncertainly factor surrounding his identity.
It isn’t long before we suspect that Brandon Lee is not the real name of the sixteen-year-old sophomore entering Bearsden Academy as a new student. Even his classmates are heard commenting on the coincidence that, two months after the tragic death on a film set of Bruce Lee’s son Brandon, there would be a new arrival in the wealthy Glasgow suburb bearing his name.
Nor was Brandon sixteen or even seventeen like the rest of his classmates. We hear the reactions from the students as adults today including this one: “he looked like a teacher in a school uniform.”
If your jaw is already open, it will just keep dropping.
Lee, whose real name is Brian Mackinnon, had somehow enrolled, in 1993, in the school that he attended in 1975 where a few of his original teachers failed to recognise him. Director Jono McLeod was one of Lee’s classmates in 1993 and has reassembled his former classmates in school room sets to comment (usually in pairs), using cartoon recreations voiced by the Scottish singers/actresses Lulu and Clare Grogan for absent classmates. A few brave teachers agree to appear.
An on-screen reporter such as McLeod could hardly ask for richer material for his feature film debut.
There are several reasons why the bullying you might expect of a weird looking new student who keeps to himself was kept to a minimum. The first was perhaps MacKinnon’s size. The second was the story that the new student had told the admissions’ panel (there is some doubt who exactly was responsible). He led a peripatetic childhood travelling around Canada with his mother, an opera singer, before a car crash killed her, and landed him in hospital. Apparently, an estranged father was a university professor but there is no follow up on him. Subsequently, Lee went to live with his “gran” in a modest home in the wealthy suburb of Glasgow
Another reason was that Lee was smart (one teacher claimed he taught her some biology), friendly, interesting (he could do great impressions) and generous with his knowledge. He could do things for people. He befriended a lonely Black student, Stefan, who used to receive hate mail because of his colour. Stefan, who remains a supporter and provides his testimony alone, calls MacKinnon, inviting him home to help Stefan with his homework and to watch movies.
Lee was responsible for the acclaim of the school play, South Pacific in which he played Joseph Cable – ironically belting out Younger Than Springtime with conviction on stage. He was also the only student who could drive, taking classmates bowling and dancing. He could also order booze.
It was during one such drive that Lee thought he was going to be pulled over by police and warned his school mates to expect some confusion over his driver’s licence, attributing the irregularity to Canadian rules. He was not pulled over but later, on a holiday in Tenerife, a passport check might have marked the end to Lee’s medical career.
The elephant in the room is the curious lack of investigation into Brian MacKinnon’s background. This was a time before we used the internet as a matter of course but Canada was a commonwealth country and how hard could it have been to do a search into the real Brian MacKinnon’s background (his mother was a porter in a nursing home, his father a lollipop man). But anyone who saw the 2012 film, The Imposter, about homeless schoolboy Frédéric Bourdin will realise that goodwill is still (thank goodness) extended to orphaned school children in many countries.
While some might dispute MacKinnon’s claim that all he wanted was to study medicine to make his mother happy, it seems this was his motivation, delusional or not. That he actually went to Dundee University and dropped out or failed is another story, as psychological factors are clearly an issue. What is clear is that the opportunity for second chances in professional careers do apparently stop at 30, and there is little opportunity for mistakes. Our ageist society has to rethink these issues if it wants people to delay retirement for the sake of the economy.
At the end of the documentary, just when you expect things to lag, come a series of revelations introducing more puzzles or questions. Was MacKinnon’s gran, who, it turns out, was really his mother, complicit in his deceit? Then there is the creepy notion of a 32-year-old man hanging out with sixteen year old girls, which leads to the kiss in South Pacific.
The collective memory of the production of the play includes MacKinnon astonishing the audience with his professional voice but giving Liat a shy peck on the cheek when the script calls for a passionate kiss. This belies the shocking video evidence shown at the end in a big reveal that is worth the price of admission alone.
While our immediate reaction is to laugh in astonishment at this story, or even condemn MacKinnon for his deceit, many viewers will watch in sadness. There is no evidence that MacKinnon was a sexual predator or did anyone any harm. It seems he has wasted his life in a misguided and/or delusional attempt to become a doctor. He was once good enough to get into medical school, and the right age. Was there no one in his life to help?
