Back in our movie-theater days, Whitney and I used to see a lot of small British art films. Nowadays, though, those movies are crypto–Queue Blockers: They generally look safe and comfortable, so we blithely add them to our queue. Then they arrive ... and we can't seem to get excited about watching them.

The problem is that "safe and comfortable" puts a floor but also a ceiling on our expectations. And if we don't think there's at least a chance we'll be passionate about a DVD, we start wondering if we should maybe do something else with that time. (This is as likely to be extra sleep as sex—which may have something to do with Shortbus being near the top of our queue; I'll keep you posted. About Shortbus, that is.) Sometimes, however, faced with a full hand of these pleasant art films, we're forced to pick one or face the guilt of sending one back unwatched.

The History Boys, based on Alan Bennett's play, follows a group of students at a regional all-male British high school, who are preparing for their applications to Oxford or Cambridge. The headmaster (Clive Merrison), greedy at the chance to break the school's Oxbridge-acceptance record, hires a tutor, Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore) to help them in their preparations.

Irwin encourages the boys to see the application process as a game, in which they should use their knowledge strategically; he thereby comes into polite conflict with the boys' other mentor, the dreamy, poetry-obsessed "general studies" instructor Hector (Richard Griffiths), who believes in knowledge simply for its own sake. As the entrance exams draw nearer, the boys are torn between Hector's free-form, all-art-is-worthy idealism and Irwin's appealingly impatient practicality.

The actors portraying the eight boys (who, like the rest of the cast, also played these roles in the stage production) have a true rapport that lends a snappy, fun, bantering tone to what could have been very dry stuff. And Bennett, probably best known in the States for The Madness of King George, is a master at inserting object lessons without damaging the lightness of his atmosphere. But the best thing about The History Boys is Griffiths (Withnail and I fans will remember the actor fondly as Uncle Monty), who fills Hector with a deeply sympathetic lyricism. Irwin may be allowed to provide a compelling logic for his position, but Hector gets the juicy lines, and Griffiths makes them sing.

With the exception of a stagey and unnecessary coda, everything about this film—acting, writing, Nicholas Hytner's direction—is first-rate. And yet, as I'd feared, I can't summon up strong feelings about it. It's the kind of film you finish watching with a smile on your face, but despite its intelligent treatment of topical issues (the "teach to the tests" debate is, or soon will be, relevant to many of us), there's really nothing all that challenging or provocative here. You wind up more self-satisfied than satisfied.