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YMMV / The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

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  • Accidental Aesop: If you take Jean's Fascism and grooming of Jenny out of the equation, one could get the impression the lesson is that conformity is ideal. Deviate from the norm and you could end up molested by an older man or killed by your own naivety.
  • Adaptation Displacement: The book is well-known but it's often forgotten that the film is an adaptation of a play. The play was not particularly successful and only got a boost in popularity after the film was made. Certain details of the film - notably Sandy's more assertive personality and Mary McGregor getting killed - aren't in the book. But they are some of the most memorable aspects of it. The book is more experimental and talks more about religion (part of Sandy's coming of age is rejecting the school's Calvinist teachings and becoming a Catholic nun) - whereas the play and film focus more on failed love and Fascist politics. Jean Brodie is also far more attractive and charismatic in the film.
  • Alternate Character Interpretation:
    • Jean Brodie is subject to a lot of this. She says that she opted to stay away from Teddy Lloyd to devote her life to teaching young girls. But Sandy especially calls her out that she selects certain girls that merely appeal to her vanity and seem easy to manipulate. There's also the question of whether Jean picks girls for the "Brodie set" because they remind her of herself (Jenny in particular) or because she feels affection for them. There's also the possibility that the Brodie set she views as the children she never had. In the book she scoffs at the idea of going to a more progressive school because of their eccentricity - suggesting she's employing Tall Poppy Syndrome and loving the idea of being the Blithe Spirit in a conservative environment.
    • The Love Triangle between Teddy Lloyd and Gordon Lowther. Jean could either enjoy stringing both of them along and simply not want to have to pick one. Or she could be keeping Lowther at bay because she doesn't love him and doesn't want to trap him in an unhappy marriage with her when she still pines for Lloyd. Or she could have been intending to marry Lowther once Jenny had started her affair, in effect having both men at last. There's also the much simpler option that Jean saw Teddy as a one night stand and enjoyed sleeping around without having to marry (the 20s having not been that long ago).
    • In the book, Sandy at one point suspects that Jean might be a lesbian because she hasn't married. Being a repressed lesbian could explain why she continues the Will They or Won't They? with Mr. Lowther, and grooms another girl who reminds her of herself to have an affair with Teddy Lloyd. Then again, what does a child know about sexuality, as Sandy's theories are coming from the mind of a sex-obsessed teenager?
    • Miss Mackay's attempts to dismiss Jean Brodie. It's either her not wanting such a radical teacher at Marcia Blaine or a personal vendetta against a teacher that's been very hard to get rid of. Miss Mackay's eventual reasons for succeeding support the former, but she definitely seems a little too pleased when she does.
    • Sandy's reasons for betraying Jean Brodie are either motivated by a desire to protect the rest of the girls (and preventing another death) or jealousy that Teddy Lloyd still painted Jean whenever she posed for him. The film also shows her crying at the end, which suggests that she's going My God, What Have I Done? alongside I Did What I Had to Do. There's also her matter of Teddy. She doesn't get him fired like she does Jean, is it because she doesn't see him as dangerous? In the book it's influenced a bit more by knowing his wife Deirdre and their children, and wanting to spare them the embarrassment of the scandal.
    • Jean Brodie's former lover Hugh. Was he truly The Lost Lenore? It's noted on the main page that with Jean being younger in the film, that makes her very young to have had an affair in 1917 - which raises the idea that she's romanticizing a teenage fling (that would explain her obsession with grooming Jenny to become a lover so young). There's also the possibility there was no Hugh at all; in the book Sandy suspects that Jean could be a lesbian, so the story of a lover that died in the war could be made up to keep suspicion off herself.
  • Aluminum Christmas Trees:
    • It would appear that the English actress Pamela Franklin is struggling with the Scottish accent in a few scenes. However in the book, Sandy has an English parent and there is repeated mention of her pronouncing words with "English vowels" — suggesting this to be a deliberate choice from the actress.
    • The final chapter has Sandy discovering that there are many Fascists even among Roman Catholic nuns (in 1938), informing the reader that Miss Brodie's Fascist leanings were not considered as eccentric as they would be after the war.
  • Angst? What Angst?: In the film, Monica and Jenny show zero angst when Mary dies in the Civil War. They're not seen until the end of term, where they're happily laughing and joking with each other. This might be a result of the adaptation, where the student who dies is Joyce Emily Hammond - a delinquent girl they had no time for. They did grieve for Mary's death later though - suffering remorse for how they bullied her.
  • Award Snub: Although Dame Maggie Smith received an Oscar for her role as Jean, the only nomination Pamela Franklin got was a BAFTA - which she lost to her co-star Celia Johnson. The only other award she was up for was for the National Board of Review.
  • Cant Unhear It: Maggie Smith as Jean Brodie. And possibly Celia Johnson as Miss Mackay.
  • Designated Villain: Miss Mackay is who Jean Brodie opposes and yet she's not particularly cruel or conservative. She's just disturbed by some Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour from her students, and is worried they might be getting dangerous ideas from their teacher - which as it turns out they are. She actually suggests that Jean go and teach at a school that's less conservative than Marcia Blaine, suggesting she wants to keep everyone happy. In the book however, she is far more antagonistic; she makes up slanderous rumours and tries to bribe the girls into telling lies to get Jean fired.
  • Fridge Horror: Jean appears to have a Replacement Goldfish in another young girl called Clara who she mistakenly calls Jenny at one point. She favors Jenny because the girl reminds her of herself, and that's why she chose her to be groomed for the affair with Teddy. Say that didn't work, what's to stop her from grooming Clara to do the same? Except Clara is significantly younger, and one at least gets the impression that Jean's idea to groom Jenny came when the girl was a little older. If she starts grooming Clara from the age she is already... though thankfully not an issue due to Sandy.
  • Funny Moments:
    • Monica bursts into tears after Jean's story about her lover that died in the war. Miss Mackay comes in shortly after, and Jean covers up by saying they were learning about a particularly violent battle - and Miss Mackay has a hilarious reaction ("crying over a history lesson?"). After Jean explains that the circumstances were quite sad, the headmistress responds "to be sure" in a way that's made funny by Celia Johnson's delivery.
    • Lowther bursts into one of Jean's classes in a panic (as Miss Mackay has just seen the fake letter talking about their affair). Jean tries to keep up appearances and says (as innocently as she can) "Mr Lowther, did you want to speak to me about something?" - while pushing him out the door.
    • When Mary McGregor accidentally walks in on Teddy and Jean kissing, Jean furiously screams at her about what happened to 'Peeping Tom'. Mary flees in terror. Teddy meanwhile quips "poor old Tom."
    • The letter reading scene - where Miss Mackay has found Sandy and Jenny's sex fic about Jean and Gordon. As she reads it aloud, Jean clearly finds it Actually Pretty Funny, while Gordon looks mortified. Miss Mackay also looks especially annoyed when the letter describes her as "rather narrow". The crowner is when the letter congratulates Gordon "on your sexual intercourse, and your singing."
    • Jean's Suddenly Shouting outburst after her resignation is demanded counts, if only for Miss Mackay's utterly dumbfounded reaction when she's done. Jean also gives us this gem.
      "If scandal is to your taste, Miss Mackay, I will give you a feast!"
    • Teddy's dismissing Jean and Gordon's lovemaking as "All those boring hours in bed with old Lowther puffing bravely away."
    • When Jean hears that Gordon has been seeing Ms Lockhart, she snarks that it's best not to make her mad.
    "After all, she has the means to blow us all up!"
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Real-life husband and wife Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens play a toxic couple that end the film unhappy and apart. They divorced only a few years later.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • Maggie Smith plays a dangerous teacher who is difficult to get rid of. Years later in the Harry Potter series, she would get to be on the other side - as a Reasonable Authority Figure trying to oppose a dangerous tyrant abusing her pupils. And she uses a Scottish accent for both.
    • Jean Brodie is a massive Fascist supporter - and in the book she admires Hitler too. Her love interest in the film would later play a man attempting to escape from a German POW camp.
    • There's also Maggie Smith's role in Tea With Mussolini, where she's one of several English and American ladies enduring persecution in Mussolini's Italy. Be Careful What You Wish For much?
    • Miss Mackay is scandalised when she reads a fake love letter written by Sandy and Jenny about Jean and Gordon having sex. Fast forward to the 21st Century where Real Person Fics are considered standard behaviour for teenage girls.
    • If you've seen this film and Dead Poets Society, the similarities in plot points are quite amusing - Cool Teacher against conservative authority figure who tries and eventually succeeds to get them fired, Shrinking Violet character who becomes more assertive through the teacher's influence, students forming their own clique inspired by the teacher, focus on art and culture, one student dying and the teacher being dismissed shortly after. Except in the latter, the teacher's presence is heroic.
    • Sandy's fate in the book is to eventually become a nun. Maggie Smith would memorably play a nun in the Sister Act movies.
    • In the film, Mary's Freudian Slip is covered up by the other girls saying she's talking about Shakespeare. Mary's actress Jane Carr would later earn Olivier Award nominations for her Shakespeare work on the stage. Could also double as Heartwarming in Hindsight.
  • Jerkass Woobie:
    • It's hard not to feel sorry for Jean as her whole life falls apart around her, even if she absolutely deserved it all.
    • Sandy does a lot of nasty things in the book and film, but it's only because she's spent years being conditioned by a teacher she trusted and eventually suffered a Broken Pedestal for. In the book, there's a moment where she feels guilty for bullying Mary, but becomes terrified that she'll be bullied if she's nice to her.
    • Teddy only qualifies after suffering massive amounts of Heel Realization in the third act - where he admits his obsession with Jean is ruining his life and he's reduced to sleeping with his students.
  • Narm:
    • When Teddy Lloyd sees the Brodie Set walking down the street outside his studio, he has a hilariously over-the-top reaction - jumping to the window dramatically as if he's in an opera.
    • During the sequence of the girls getting lessons in school, the singing lesson starts with an abrupt cut to a close-up of Mr Lowther already belting out a song. The suddenness makes it unintentionally hilarious.
    • Jean's cry of ASSASSIN in the last scene.
  • Narm Charm: Miss Brodie is a Large Ham but Maggie Smith's Oscar-winning performance shows how charismatic she is, and how easily she can command the attention of her pupils through that charisma alone.
  • Retroactive Recognition: In the original stage run, Olivia Hussey played Jenny - right before she achieved worldwide fame with Romeo and Juliet (1968).
  • Tear Jerker:
    • Mary McGregor and her ultimate fate. She's an orphan who gets bullied by the other girls, even those in the "Brodie Set". And she takes the terrible advice of the one mother figure she's ever known - and runs off to join the army. Her train gets bombed before she even gets there - and it turns out that she was headed for the wrong army. She had intended to join her brother, assuming he was fighting for Franco when he was fighting for the Republic. So not only did she die for nothing, she never got reunited with her brother and if she'd headed to the other side - she might at least have lived long enough.
    • Sandy's line about Mary also tragically sums up the poor girl's fate.
    "She had you. That was her misfortune!"
    • Mary's fate in the book is equally sad. She's bullied by the girls far more than she is in the film - where she at least gets accepted by them after revealing she saw Jean and Teddy kissing. Jean even picks on her in the book. Sandy occasionally feels sorry for her but continues to bully her anyway. Despite this, Mary would still look back on her years at Marcia Blaine as the happiest of her life. She dies at the age of twenty-four in a hotel fire - where she becomes too confused to escape. The rest of the Brodie Set are deeply saddened by this and many of them frequently say "I should have been nicer to Mary."
    • There's also the part during Sandy's "Reason You Suck" Speech where she suddenly stops shouting and meekly says "what will you do now?" - showing that she clearly feels remorse for Jean. And in fact she probably waited in the classroom to see if she was going to be okay. The fact that this is her parting with her mentor is also incredibly sad to think about.
  • Tough Act to Follow: Pamela Franklin's career was never able to match her performance as Sandy. Despite working until the early 1980s, her subsequent roles never lived up to the hype surrounding this one. Film historians have attributed it to her move to America, and the country not knowing what to do with such an unconventional actress.
  • Unbuilt Trope: Before the Cool Teacher trope had become popular, here is a very early deconstruction of it. Jean Brodie's pupils have their lives ruined by her influence and the Dean Bitterman she opposes seems more like a Reasonable Authority Figure.
  • Unintentionally Sympathetic: Jean for one specific incident - Mary walking in on her and Teddy kissing, which leads to the girls getting caught imitating it by Miss Mackay. Jean and Teddy were kissing in private, and Teddy forcefully kissed her. Jean gets all the flack for this, even though she wasn't doing it in front of her students and it was bad luck that Mary walked into the empty classroom to witness it.
  • Values Dissonance:
    • Although the story is ahead of its time by pointing out the dangerous effect a teacher can have on her pupils, it's a little alarming how casually the girls treat the idea of one of them having an affair with Teddy Lloyd. Notably Sandy gets Miss Brodie dismissed for causing Mary's death but she never attempts to get Teddy fired for making passes at his students.note  Even if (as Alternate Character Interpretation puts it above) she sees him as not very dangerous, he did have an affair with a student. While it was mostly consensual on Sandy's part, it did begin with him forcefully kissing her.
    • The idea of teenage girls having sexual fantasies about their teachers and authority figures is considered scandalous to Miss Mackay, and another sign of Jean Brodie's dangerous influence on them. Nowadays it's more accepted that teenagers will develop Precocious Crushes and find some teachers attractive, and this kind of thing is only wrong if the students act on it or behave inappropriately about it - which isn't the case here. Jean had no idea about the fake letter and didn't encourage this aspect in the girls - and Sandy and Jenny didn't intend for the paper to be read by anyone. So here, Miss Mackay doesn't really have a case, and it's only through Moral Luck that this turns out to be Foreshadowing for Jean grooming Jenny to have an affair with Teddy.
    • Jean Brodie chooses not to get married so she can devote her life to teaching. Of course in the 1930s she would presumably have to give up her job and raise children once she was married (in some parts of the world there were laws stating that a woman must stop working once married) - and this causes much drama from her having an affair with Gordon Lowther. In the modern day, marriage wouldn't change her career much if at all.
    • Gordon Lowther's job is likewise threatened from being seen out in public with Jean and her girls, simply because they're unmarried and it suggests the possibility of an affair (that there actually is one going on is irrelevant). Specifically he's dropped from his church choir for this. The idea that one can be fired because of something in their personal life is quite startling to modern viewers. This also adds more urgency for he and Jean to marry, while marriage is not considered a must these days.
  • The Woobie:
    • Poor, slow Mary McGregor who has no one except a delinquent brother and Miss Brodie. In the book, her post-school fate also includes one boyfriend who deserts her.
    • Mr Lowther, a decent, guileless sort who is strung along by Miss Brodie for years.

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