Spud (2010) on Netflix
In 1990, fourteen-year-old John Milton leaves home for a boys' boarding school in KwaZulu-Natal on a scholarship. The boys there nickname him Spud, and making friends does not come easily.
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- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb6.6/102,956 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes80%
Trailer
Plot summary
It is 1990 in South Africa, and John Milton, fourteen, is an only child from an ordinary home who wins a place at a boys' boarding school in KwaZulu-Natal. His dormitory holds eight boys, all known by nicknames, and John, who has not yet hit puberty, is dubbed Spud and finds it hard to make friends. He alone passes an English exam, and the teacher nicknamed The Guv takes an interest, lending him books and asking him to lunch. During the holidays he falls for Debbie, his mother's friend's daughter, whom he calls The Mermaid. He auditions for the school production of Oliver Twist and lands the lead, meeting Amanda, a girl from St. Catherine's.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Spud (2010)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Producer Ross Garland's uncle saw the South-African born Australian actor Troye Sivan on Australian television and wrote to Garland about him; Sivan, who has been singing professionally since he was nine, does his own singing in the film.
- Constitutional Court Justice Edwin Cameron publicly accused the film of denigrating gays and lesbians, pointing to a scene where John Cleese's character jokes about "rogering" all lesbians and another where a gay teacher tells his rugby team they need "more pressure from the rear."
- The filmmakers almost passed over Jason Cope for the housemaster Sparerib, thinking he looked too young, but he won them over by transforming into a convincing tyrant on set, drawing on memories of a real vice principal he once had.
