‘Freedom Writers’ offers saintly teacher
Someday, maybe there will be a film festival about movies where teachers overcome tons of adversities and make a difference in the lives of their troubled students.
Remember “Good-bye Mr. Chips” from 1939? Who can forget “Blackboard Jungle” from the 50s. Sidney Poiter’s breakthrough film was “To Sir With Love,” taking place in London in the 1960s.
Move over films, because “Freedom Writers” profiles a classroom of children who are more troubled, have lived more violent lives and have more of an attitude than the kids in all of those other movies.
More, more, more.
Hillary Swank is the beautiful, naive teacher who is anxious to start her teaching career.
Swank plays Erin Gruwell, who idolizes her dad, played by Scott Glenn. He was an activist for minority causes in the 1960s.
She wants to help the minorities at her new Long Beach high school. The school at one time was known for its great scholarship.
But these days it has opened its doors to troubled, urban children.
The film starts with glimpses of the lives these students live, being beaten, turning a corner only to find someone with a gun chasing them, seeing their parents arrested and hauled off to jail.
But soft-spoken Swank, in her short skirts and pearls, is ready to take on the task of teaching the class.
Trouble is, school officials, including department head Margaret Campbell (played by Imelda Staunton) have already written these kids off.
Many kids have goals of finishing high school, going off to college and maybe becoming a doctor or a lawyer of a teacher.
These kids just want to live to be 18 and there’s a real possiblity they won’t make it.
Why should these kids worry about reading ancient poetry when they have no home?
The school is a series of cliques. There’s the white kids, the Cambodians, the Hispanics, the African-Americans. And you do not mix amongst them.
So what does the nervous, novice Swank character do?
Eventually she garners their interest when she offers an analogy between their gangs and Nazi Germany, an era these kids know nothing about.
The school, fronted by the snooty Campbell, won’t let the students have real books because they are afraid they won’t get them back, or they will be damaged or destroyed.
Eventually, the Swank character, based on a real person, takes one, then two extra jobs to pay for the books herself. She funds a field trip to a Holocaust museum.
The kids begin to change. She breaks through to them. But it ruins her marriage and she is even alienated by her beloved father.
The plot is familiar but boy, is it well executed. It will keep you riveted.
This film pulls no punches. It is an emotional juggernaut.
With school out for a seaon, please spend a few more hours in the classroom watching “Freedom Writers.”
You won’t regret it.
FREEDOM WRITERS • Directed and screenplay by Richard LaGravenese • Runtime: 123 minutes • Rated PG-13 for violent content, some thematic material and language • 3 1/2 stars out of 4
From Star Beacon Weekender, June 13, 2008
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