Credit: www.impawards.com
Writer-Director:
Richard LaGravenese
Cast:
Hilary Swank .Erin Gruwell
Patrick Dempsey .Scott Casey
Scott Glenn .Steve Gruwell
Imelda Staunton .Margaret Campbell
Paramount Pictures presents Freedom Writers. Based on the book The Freedom Writers Diary by Erin Gruwell and the Freedom Writers. Running time: 123 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for violent content, some thematic material and language).
Every so often Hollywood reminds us of our educational system and the teachers that make a difference. Real stories or invented, they typically revolve around an idealistic teacher, who is either entering the classroom for the very first time or is well-educated in a particular field of study but must settle on teaching for the time being. But what usually starts as a short-term fix, as far as employment goes, turns into something permanent.
With this latest incarnation, Freedom Writers, we get a mirror representation of the movie Dangerous Minds from the mid-90s. Both movies deal with inner city schools and the infighting amongst students from different ethnic groups. They both have idealistic teachers who are teaching English. In Minds, Michelle Pfeiffer cut her teeth in the military before transitioning to a high school classroom.
For Freedom Writers, Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank) had to settle for an epiphany while attending law school. Instead of waiting to prosecute or defend an individual, why not make a difference before the accused ever enters a courtroom: Become a teacher and help those underprivileged students that administrative officials have already determined to be a room full of lost causes. Without formal training, Gruwell is in for a rude awakening.
Idealism can only get you so far. As a teacher you must be able to make connections. Find that one thing that will make the students want to sit up. It can be as simple as understanding the true meaning of “Carpe Diem,” or learning how to ballroom dance. The students, more often than not, take to the new way of schooling and rise above their plight for starters, being a juvenile delinquent or getting killed just because your skin isn’t a certain color.
These types of movies have at least one indelible image that has a way of resonating years after. In Dead Poets Society, it is the students standing on their desks and shouting “O, Captain, My Captain”. In Lean on Me, it is Morgan Freeman as “Crazy Joe”, the principal of an inner city high school, wielding a baseball bat and referring to himself as Batman. And in Stand and Deliver it is Edward James Olmos walking down a corridor pumping his fist, pleased at what his students have accomplished.
Hilary Swank doesn’t swing a bat and she doesn’t motivate her students to stand on furniture. What she does is open their eyes. Arriving with a pearl necklace and a matching red blazer and skirt, Swank inherently reverts back to her Oscar-winning performance in Million Dollar Baby. She doesn’t lace up her boxing gloves, but the way she interacts with her class, it is a “feeling out” process. It isn’t until she learns that most of her students have had friends and relatives killed by gang warfare that she begins to understand their situation. How everyday, just going to school could get you killed. So she mentions the Holocaust and gets blank stares. When she asks if anyone can tell her what the Holocaust was, only one person raises his hand. The lone white guy.
Besides being an image that sticks with you, the single raised hand is a reminder of our educational system and its downward spiral. There is plenty of finger-pointing to go around, and writer-director Richard LaGravenese alludes to voluntary integration within the school district as a likely culprit. There are other reasons, but the interactions with individuals of different races and ethnicities are an easy way to instigate hostility. History has shown us this.
And as an English teacher, Erin Gruwell has found in talking about the Holocaust, it is the best way to relate to the kids. Powerful moments are created from her teaching them about Anne Frank and her Diary. They begin to have an affinity for writing, as it is a cathartic means of reflecting on the past, wondering what the future holds in store, and how they are at the present moment.
The movie is sincere in this regard, but outside the classroom it falters. Seeing Erin’s relationship erode with her husband Scott (Patrick Dempsey) becomes a distraction, because it is clear early into Freedom Writers how it will end. Scott tries to be supportive, but how can he compete against a class of twenty-plus students.
Freedom Writers is decent, but fails in originality. An alternative would have been to focus more on the students and see how they muster the strength to pick up their book bags and take the bus to school. Even better would have been a movie with little stories, situations taken directly from The Freedom Writers Diary. Considering this movie is about finding your voice and expressing your thoughts, what better way than a patchwork of ideas from Erin Gruwell’s English class?
