Critics reviews

The setting of if…., its appeal to young public school survivors, and the mood of the times in which it appeared have given it the reputation of scathing satire, but what makes the film lastingly disturbing is the softness in its observations, the nostalgia for the known threats of institutional life.

Graduation is rendered as an extremist attack, an implosion of all the practiced niceties, the hidden urges. The only reason all Anderson's anarchy works so well is because he got the details right. The world is real. It also happens to be a nightmare, a pipe bomb of pent-up sensuality and half-formed political posturing. The scars will last a lifetime if you're lucky.