‘Emperor’s Club’ stands strong on morality theme

"The Emperor's Club" defines itself by its sentiments, its ethics and its understanding of what constitutes character.

It depicts a truism that has fallen out of movie fashion — that the qualities and flaws most encouraged in a young person nestle into the soul of the adult.

The film's advertising recalls "Dead Poets Society" with a dash of "Good Will Hunting," but its heart belongs to "Goodbye, Mr. Chips."

"The Emperor's Club" (a terrible title) is one of those "unforgettable teacher" movies set in an East Coast boarding school, St. Benedict's Academy for Boys, where the students wear blazers and striped ties, and the faculty fosters academic excellence and moral leadership.

William Hundert (Kevin Kline) is up in years when we meet him. He was "a scholar of antiquity," a teacher of Western Civilization — the Greeks and the Romans.

He had taught at St. Benedict's for 34 years, discreetly pining for one of his married colleagues, Elizabeth (Embeth Davidtz), and befriending the ambitious new Latin teacher, James Ellerby (Rob Morrow).

Like the philosopher Heraclitus, William believes "a man's character is his fate," which doubles as the film's theme.

Deep into his retirement from teaching, William is called back into service for one day to officiate at a rematch of finalists from his bygone Mr. Julius Caesar contest, just as he had conducted it more than a quarter of a century ago.

In an hourlong flashback, he recalls he had had four major contenders for the three finalist slots back in the mid- 70s, all of whom attend the reunion.

Three had been studious and mostly conscientious: Martin Blythe (Paul Dano in boyhood; Steven Culp later); Deepak Mehta (Rishi Mehta, then Rahul Khanna); and the more impressionable Louis Masoudi (Jesse Eisenberg, later Patrick Dempsey).

The fourth was the catalyst, Sedgewick Bell (Emile Hirsch, then Joel Gretsch).

An outspoken and disruptive class clown, he's the son of the condescending and controlling Sen. Hyram Bell (Harris Yulin).

Sedgewick's irreverence makes him his peers' favorite; he wouldn't, or shouldn't, be William's, too.

But Sedgewick represents potential that is spoiling, and William compromises himself to help him.

William might see Sedgewick as a challenge, but the subtext runs deeper: Sedgewick has so much promise that the temptation is irresistible to impress him in some way — like the influential gay teacher Tom Hanks referred to when accepting his Oscar for "Philadelphia."

Compromise is at the core of "The Emperor's Club," which Neil Tolkan adapted from Ethan Canin's short story "The Palace Thief."

I wish Tolkan and director Michael Hoffman had resisted one scene of gratuitous cuteness involving a broken window, which clumsily injects levity but perhaps validly hints of William's yearning to belong.

More egregiously, the film is constructed on the assumption that the winner of an academic competition would consent to a senseless rematch a quarter of a century later. What's to be gained• He won when it counted.

But these are niggling reservations in a movie that is thematically sound and cylindrical.

It's one of the few 2002 films, besides "Road to Perdition" and "The Bread, My Sweet," that burrows into the heart and encourages a positive affirmation of human nature.

The ensemble is quite fine, including Edward Herrmann as Headmaster Woodbridge. And James Newton Howard contributes a lively, scene-specific score.

Mostly, though, "The Emperor's Club" will send moviegoers home with renewed regard for Kline, whose William is possessed of great dignity, intelligence, subtlety of gesture and understated elegance.

He's Mr. Chips — "Chippy" — for a new generation.