Film Review: MY OLD SCHOOL: A Doc About Deception That’s a Sheer Heartfelt Oddity [Sundance 2022]

My Old School Review

My Old School (2022) Film Review from the 45th Annual Sundance Film Festival, a documentary written and directed by Jono McLeod, starring Alan Cumming.

We’ve all agreed that it’s kinda sad if you peak in high school. However … what does it say when you peak in high school on your second time through? A second time that wasn’t even necessary for you to relive, but one that you chose to relive on your own accord? Why would anyone choose to re-do those awkward, homework-saddled, and acne-pocked teenage years??

That is the burning question that is dissected by the former students of Bearsden Academy, a prep school in a Glasgow suburb that in the mid-1990s got bamboozled into believing a 32-year-old man was a high school senior. Director Jono McLeod, who was a Bearsden student at the time, uses his new doc My Old School to examine the sheer oddity of this situation, but also focuses on what this case says about the temporality of identity and the fluidity of memory.

The film is filled by interviews with McLeod and his fellow classmates, as well as animated recreations of their recollections of how the events transpired. The student at the center of the scandal is then-32-year-old and now-sexagenarian Brian MacKinnon, a.k.a. “Brandon Lee” (a name which MacKinnon claims he didn’t steal from the headlines about the recently-deceased movie star, but that given the timeline, many of the interviewees think is too convenient to be mere coincidence). MacKinnon/”Lee” refused to appear on camera but did submit to an audio interview, so to fit that in with the talking-head set-up McLeod employs the pantomime work of actor Alan Cumming (who at one time was set to portray MacKinnon/”Lee” in a film adaptation of the story). (Cumming also voices Brian/”Brandon” in the animated segments, while the voices of non-interviewed subjects are done by other professional voice actors.)

The first half of the film rolls along predictably: checklist introductions and exposition dumps, supplemented with animated bits that play like a cross between Daria and Bitstrips. It’s perfectly serviceable but its content feels underserved by its softball style – especially when you can scope the big reveal nearly from the get-go.

But McLeod isn’t that single-tracked, because once the cat’s out of the bag there’s no putting it back. Once My Old School makes Brian’s true identity known more and more revelations start pouring out, which also means more and more unanswered questions.

Supposedly, MacKinnon returned to Bearsden to get better grades after a failed university run in the early 1980s to study medicine (he claims the university was emotionally aggressive and coerced him to leave, while the university claims they asked him to leave due to poor grades and a severe lack of understanding the material). But some rather glaring items are left as-is, such as: Why did Brian return to the same school for his second go at high school? Why didn’t any of the teachers and administrators catch wind of his ruse? How much of Brian’s recollections about university mismanagement is accurate, and did he actually think a second chance with a falsified identity would ever work?

It’s hard to say anything with certainty and all we as the audience can really do is speculate. But if anything, MacKinnon’s own delivery supports an interviewed professor’s tepid rationale: the man has a sort of amicable charm that makes him oddly sympathetic, and whether or not he’s right about his claims or who he is doesn’t make him any less convincing.

The most potent takeaway from My Old School, though, are the reactions of “Brandon’s” former classmates who were actual kids at the time in question, and how they view things now with some distance. Some are still shocked and upset that a grown man took teenagers’ naivety for granted – not even in an abusive or scurrilous way, but just in a basic violation of their friendship’s trust (although, “Brandon’s” co-star in the school’s spring musical – wherein there was at least a 15-year age difference – was thoroughly unsettled after reviewing a videotaped performance wherein she watched him passionately kiss her numerous times … something that she had always remembered as a mere peck on the cheek). Some can’t bring themselves to be angry, because “Brandon” was there to offer them kindness at a time when they needed it most – particularly for one of the few Black students at this school in a predominantly-white suburb, who experienced bullying and racist taunts regularly but found nonjudgmental solace in “Brandon”, as well as an inspiration for his current pharmaceutical career.

MacKinnon never allows us a straightforward insight into his thought process, and try as he might McLeod can’t quite conjure one up, either. The doc is constructed on half-truths and assumptions, yet that’s ironically where its strength lies. These contradictions and convolutions seem to be a running theme throughout this year’s Sundance, speaking truth to the disorganized nature of being human. McLeod neither rectifies nor admonishes Brian’s actions outright, but balances them out in a complex story of ego, unbridled passion, and an unfortunate lack of foresight.

Sometimes things are not wholly good nor wholly bad; sometimes we alter our memories to paint ourselves (or the perceptions we have of ourselves) more affably; sometimes we forget that we are capable of containing messy multitudes (cue Meredith Brooks right about now).

And sometimes, in order to move on, I suppose we have to go back in time.

Rating: 6/10

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