The Riot Club

Laura Wade’s smash hit play Posh , performed to critical acclaim at London’s Royal Court Theatre, is adapted for the screen with a promising plethora of British acting talent. The Riot Club centres around the infamous Bullingdon club, the lewdly behaved Oxford drinking society whose previous members include Boris Johnson, David Cameron and George Osborne. "Do nothing without joy, and everything to excess" is the club’s rallying cry and whilst this hedonistic sentiment will bring verve to a glittering, comic spectacle, the effects of such an unfeeling raison d’être will make audiences uncomfortable with its social implications. 
As a comment on the rising state of inequality within the nation’s top universities (since the 1960s, an increasing number of elites have outnumbered their state educated counterparts) along with the chilling realities of networks of power, the film seems aptly timed. Just as Wade’s Posh coincided with the 2010 general election, so too will The Riot Club be inevitably understood within the context of next year’s vote. Director Lone Sherfig is sure to bring the same bitter social angst that proved arresting in her most famous film An Education. Moreover, just as that movie saw the flowering of Carey Mulligan’s career, so too Sherfig has brought out the best in an a-list cast. Max Irons (son of Jeremy and star of Dorian Gray) plays the film’s only redemptive character, while Sam Claftin (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) provides his sinister, callous counterpart. Douglas Booth (Noah, Worried About the Boy) plays Harry, an enthusiast both of fencing and prostitutes, and Freddie Fox’s James is a career-focused financier.
While some critics have been concerned by the glitziness of the cast, claiming it softens its political bite, others point to its almost meta-relevance to the film. Many are from similar backgrounds to the characters that they play. Moreover, for those who see the movie as an inverted Brideshead Revisited, the casting of Max Irons (whose father played Charles in the iconic adaptation of Waugh’s novel) seems equally apt.