"Freedom Writers" is a film that really shouldn't work but somehow does. After all, it's been over fifty years since "The Blackboard Jungle" drew up the blueprint that all future "super teacher" dramas would feel called upon to follow. The formula goes something like this: a young, hopelessly naive idealist from a privileged background, filled with romantic notions about molding young minds and saving the world, is rudely thrust into an inner city classroom overflowing with recalcitrant troublemakers and streetwise thugs whom all the other faculty members and school board big wigs have written off as incapable of learning. After a few sessions in which the students run roughshod over the touchy-feely, ill-prepared newcomer, the teacher inevitably achieves a breakthrough by reaching the kids "where they're at," eventually turning them all into model citizens no longer cognizant of socioeconomic or racial barriers and all ready to move ahead and make something of their lives. Inevitably, the teacher becomes a role model for the youngsters, one who has to fight a constant, solitary battle against the other burnt-out faculty members, administrators and school district bureaucrats who have long ago given up expecting the kids to learn and feel that if they are simply able to "warehouse" them and keep them from killing one another in the hallways, they are fulfilling their responsibilities as faithful stewards of the taxpayers' money.
Given its slavish adherence to the formula, it's hard not to be cynical about a movie like "Freedom Writers," but damned if the whole thing doesn't worm its way into our affections despite all our best efforts to resist it (maybe some formulas ARE formulas for the simple reason that they actually work). The movie is based on an actual English teacher named Erin Gruwell, who arrived at Wilson Classical High School in Long Beach, Ca., in the fall of 1993. Faced with a class full of hostile African-American, Asian and Hispanic gang members, Gruwell eventually broke down their resistance and got them interested in learning by having them write personal journals in which they poured out their innermost thoughts, concerns and feelings about their lives and the world in which they lived. This led to a publication of the students' writing and the setting up of a foundation dedicated to helping inspire other inner city kids to stay in school and reach for the stars.
It is the initial journal entries that serve as the source for much of the screenplay, and writer/director Richard LaGravenese has wisely chosen to showcase their entries in the form of voice-over narration. More than anything else, it is this device that lends the film the depth it might otherwise lack and that lifts it above the clichés of the genre. The other key element in the film's success is the uniformly excellent work turned in by the actors and actresses playing the youngsters. Each and every one of them has a natural and believable way about them that draws us into the lives of the characters they are portraying. Particular notice should be paid to April L. Hernandez and Deance Wyatt who are genuine standouts in a truly impressive ensemble cast. Hillary Swank does well in the role of Gruwell, but it is a measure of the casts' talent here that she is often upstaged by the youngsters. I can imagine this film serving as the launching pad for quite a few impressive careers in the future.
The movie acknowledges the downside of Gruwell's nobility and dedication by chronicling the negative effect the job has on her marriage and home life, but these scenes aren't dramatized in a particularly convincing way, so all they really succeed in doing is slowing down the action and diluting the impact of the teacher/student relationships (Patrick Demsey and Scott Glenn are also largely wasted in the roles of Gruwell's less-than-supportive husband and father respectively). Moreover, the other faculty members are little more than straw man caricatures whose sole purpose is to serve as foils against which Gruwell's nobility can stand out all the more impressively. (The wonderful Imelda Staunton does, however, manage to imbue her stereotype of the bitter, nay-saying educator with a surprising amount of depth and humanity). Gruwell's experience with these youngsters is compelling enough in its own right without having to stack the deck against her unnecessarily and reducing everyone else to the level of callous villain just to make the point.
It's true that anyone who has seen "To Sir With Love," "Up the Down Staircase," "Stand and Deliver," "Dangerous Minds" - or any of the countless other "Blackboard Jungle" knockoffs that have come our way over the years - will not be surprised by much that happens in "Freedom Writers," but there are many genuinely touching moments in the movie, especially those involving a field trip the kids take to the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, their reading of "The Diary of Anne Frank," and their meeting with the actual woman (here played by movie veteran Pat Carroll) who helped to hide the Franks and others from the Nazis.
The movie does hint at one further potential dark side to the "super teacher" phenomenon. At the end of the movie, we are informed that Gruwell followed her students throughout their four years of high school, then took a job as a teacher at a local college. One wonders why, if this was such a "calling" for Gruwell, she didn't ultimately stick with the profession beyond the initial four years. Could it be that such teachers are like dazzling supernovas that blaze brightly for a season then burn themselves out, leaving the duller but steadier stars to light the way for future students? Sad to say, that may just be the one unintended message audiences will take away from the movie.
