Based
on the nonfiction book compiled by Long Beach high school teacher Erin Gruwell
from the writings of her economically-challenged and
scholastically-underserved students taken from their diaries, Freedom Writers
is a formula feel-good film about one teacher's near-quixotic quest to get her
students to learn something about themselves, and about others, in order to
not be swallowed up by the negativity surrounding them.
Their name stems from the
"Freedom Riders", which were the the multi-ethnic passengers on
the buses that traveled to peaceably demonstrate against segregation in the
Civil Rights Movement of the early 1960s. The name nicely ties in to the segregated
cliques that have formed in the Los Angeles area, whereby ethnic background and
skin color marked the dividing lines of wars between rival gangs for territory
and dominance of the community, which spilled over into violence in the
schools when the different cultures of the area are forced to go to school
together.
As a new, white-skinned, and
somewhat naive teacher in Long Beach, California, Erin Gruwell (Swank,
The Black Dahlia) has a hard time
touching the minds and hearts of her mostly bused-in, minority freshman
students in her grammar class. After realizing that the rampant racism
that permeates the community has presented severe obstacles to their
educational growth, Ms. Gruwell is determined to find some way to get the
students to learn, even when her own colleagues in the school have written
them all off as un-teachable.
Utilizing the events of
the Holocaust, Gruwell teaches the students a valuable lesson on prejudice,
fears, and gangs that inspires them to be better than they ever thought they
could be. However, Gruwell's ailing marriage, disapproving father
(Glenn, Training Day), and a jaded school
administration prove to be daunting adversaries to her plans, and she must
make a choice to continue to work overtime to provide an adequate education to
her young minds, at the expense of her personal life and possibly her future
career.
Freedom Writers
has been compared to the 1995 film, Dangerous Minds, which featured a
similar true-life story of a White, female teacher trying to break through the
color barrier in order to educate her inner city students by getting them to
believe in themselves. While some might claim this new film is
redundant, it should be remembered that Dangerous Minds itself is also
quite formulaic in its own regard, patterned after the many inspirational
teacher dramas that paved the way before it. If you are one who enjoys
these uplifting stories about overcoming great obstacles in order to make the
world a better place, even if the roads traveled by the filmmakers are
predictable and somewhat trite, you'll most likely find great value in viewing
Freedom Writers as informative, entertaining, and thought-provoking.
As far as films go, the
script and direction by Richard LaGravenese (Paris
I Love You, Living Out Loud) aren't going
to set the cinematic world on fire, as he imbues his tale with ample amounts
of artistic license in order to get his overall message across. The
turnaround of the attitudes of the class seems too pat and expedient for
believability, and many of the events of the film strike me as heavily
embellished for the purposes of dramatic tension. Perhaps having lived
in Southern California for most of my life, I tend to think that the
screenplay by New York native LaGravenese grossly overstates some of the
depictions of the community here as largely violent and filled with racial
tensions that cause conflicts on a daily basis in nearly every classroom and
city block at all times. Certainly, there are flare-ups and violent
crimes that occur far too often, and the tension is ever-present, but not to
the exceedingly pervasive and perpetually-eruptive extent depicted in the
film.
While the film itself may
not be the most adept example of how to make an inspirational film, the
overall message of the film of never counting out anyone in this world as
beyond hope is ultimately delivered. We may not buy all of what we see
as authentic, or the classroom kids as representative. We may question
the manipulations of the screenplay to only show these kids in Gruwell's class
(how did they manage to pass their other courses with their other teachers?),
and we never see Gruwell with any of her other students. We may even
dismiss the machinations of LaGravenese's story construction as
well-intentioned but naive as Gruwell herself initially had been.
However, also like Ms. Gruwell's story, despite its flaws, it produces
intended results.
Perhaps with a
screenwriter more in tune with the nature of the Los Angeles lifestyle, the
vernacular, and the prevalent attitudes among the melting pot existence that
is Southern California living, the authenticity could have pushed Freedom
Writers from a watchable, likeable semi-fantasy into something truly
substantial and worthwhile (a la Half Nelson,
perhaps), even if it comes at the expense of the very clean, linear narrative.
Alas, it is very much a Hollywood treatment, full of glossed-over
characterizations and trumped-up conflicts (the other school educators are
painted as the villains), and, at best, we are given everything we expect,
delivered tidy and sterile like a formula film always tends to. A strong
Swank performance and a quality supporting cast certainly help overcome some
of the corny theatrics.
Without the fact that it
is based in some part from a real-life teacher's curriculum, perhaps it would
be dismissed as hogwash, but the diaries do exist, and anyone can view the
results for themselves. It's filmmaking that strikes more for the heart
than the head, but if you find yourself moved by Gruwell's inspirational
story, seeking out the truth of the matter on your own time should feed the intellectual side
that is left a bit wanting by LaGravenese's sticky, melodramatic delivery.
Qwipster's rating:
©2007 Vince Leo
