BEFORE: OK, so here's what happened. I tend to pair up my movies, not just because I like to have at least 2 movies on each DVD I make, which means a pack of blanks last twice as long, but also because then making the chains is sometimes half as much work, once I get to a film the next one is RIGHT THERE. Of course, it doesn't always work that way, and sometimes to get where I want to go I can only include one half of a (temporary) pair. So I had this one paired up with "Ordinary Angels", even though one was a Christmas-time film and the other was a "back to school" film, which usually ends up slated for June or September. To get to Easter, though, I need to go through this film, which also neatly gets it off the list, and really there's no telling how long it could hang around the list, waiting for a connection. So let's cross it off, it's going to feel so good...
Hilary Swank carries over from "I Am Mother".
THE PLOT: Erin Gruwell, a young teacher in a racially divided school, inspires her class of at-risk students deemed incapable of learning, to learn tolerance, apply themselves and pursue education beyond high school.
AFTER: I'm just going to treat this one like a little bit of mortar, something to hold the bricks together, because I want to get on to some animated films - mixed in with the action films, of course - so hopefully tomorrow's film is a brick, but I've got to endure this preachy high school film before I can get there. Nothing good ever comes without a little bit of pain, right? I really have to get back to my linking, so I'm going to try and keep this review really short, OK?
This is based on a true story, there was a real teacher named Erin Gruwell who taught English class to at-risk teens in Long Beach, California, and then a book was written about her and her teaching methods and how she improved students' lives and got them to pay attention in class, and then based this movie on that book. Which means the movie is like review-proof, there's no way I can make fun of it or point out any logical problems without coming off like the bad guy here. It's a trap, and I'm just not going to fall into it. But it's not my thing, either, this is way outside my wheelhouse even though I've watched films like "Stand and Deliver" and "Lean on Me", and it's right in that same pocket.
If I can complain about anything, it's the use of the Holocaust to try to get inner-city youth to pay attention, by drawing some kind of parallel between the plight of the Jewish people in Europe in the 1940's to the inner-city L.A. gang experience. Nope, those are two different things, and I'm not seeing a lot of parallels there. The at-risk teens were not hiding like Anne Frank was, they weren't being exterminated by Hitler, it's just not the same thing. OK, fine, if Gruwell discovered that her students never learned about the Holocaust it's fine that she should take it upon herself to clue them in, but this was English class, not history class. Also according to this there was something of an immediate effect, akin to "Oh, Hitler killed lots of Jews, I understand my own life so much better now." That's what I find flippin' unbelievable. Like I could get into other issues of cultural appropriation and comparing rap lyrics to actual poetry (again, two separate things) but the Holocaust Oscar-bait is probably the worst offense here, in my opinion.
The other big thing is that one student sees a gang killing at a convenience store, and at first she's not going to testify in the case because the shooter was Latino and that's "her tribe", and you don't speak out about your tribe, but somehow by taking the English class she picked up the knowledge that the legal system is important and she should tell the truth on the stand, no matter what the consequences are. Again, there's something akin to a huge leap in logic there, it would have been great if the film could have somehow connected the dots and explained how she got from Point A to Point C. I mean I get how the classroom games like "The Line" got the teacher to earn the classmates' trust, but suddenly the kids in that class are not racist and trust the legal system implicitly, like those are some pretty big attitude changes to happen overnight. And it's all because they write in their journals now? Come on, pull the other one.
I know we have a funding problem in our country's schools, and sure, it's great when teachers take it upon themselves to buy extra school supplies or even books. But did this teacher really take on TWO part-time jobs in addition to being a teacher, just to buy her class more or better books from the bookstore? That all seems rather stupid, like as a NITPICK POINT, how come they had a fund-raising event to bring a Holocaust survivor to Los Angeles (this could have been a zoom call...) but they couldn't do a similar bake sale or something to raise money to buy books? If I can't fault Gruwell's teaching methods I can at least find something wrong with her choices to work more jobs for no reason, and an inability to foresee what effect that would have on her relationship.
She comes across as the kind of person who just wants to "fix" everybody, and some people, like her husband or her school administrators maybe don't want to be "fixed", because that would involve some kind of admission that they are "broken" in some way. You know what, just let me work on my own problems, and you work on yours. No, wait, I forgot, you're perfect and you just like to point out other people's faults. Well, either way, please stop helping me because maybe I need to do my own thing, even make my own mistakes and you're just making that more difficult. That's just the vibe I get from this character, she seems like a lot. Sure, go ahead, try to fix racism and gang violence in your corner of the world, if you want to waste your time, just please leave me out of it.
Directed by Richard LaGravenese (director of "A Family Affair" and "The Last Five Years")
Also starring Patrick Dempsey (last seen in "Sweet Home Alabama"), Scott Glenn (last seen in "Greenland"), Imelda Staunton (last seen in "Much Ado About Nothing"), April Hernandez Castillo, Mario, Kristin Herrera, Jaclyn Ngan, Sergio Montalvo, Jason Finn, Deance Wyatt, Vanetta Smith, Gabriel Chavarria (last seen in "Hunter Killer"), Hunter Parrish (last seen in "Still Alice"), Antonio Garcia, Giovonnie Samuels, John Benjamin Hickey (last seen in "Barry"), Robert Wisdom (last seen in "Freelancers"), Pat Carroll (last heard in "The Little Mermaid" (1989)), Will Morales, Armand Jones, Ricardo Molina (last seen in "Spanglish"), Angela Alvarado (last seen in "Replicas"), Katie Soo, Liisa Cohen (last seen in "Rent"), Brian Bennett, Horace Hall, Tim Halligan (last seen in "The Island"), Lisa Banes (last seen in "A Cure for Wellness"), Giselle Bonilla, Earl Williams, Blake Hightower (last seen in "Imagine That"), Angela Sargeant, Robin Skye (last seen in "A Family Affair"), Chil Kong (last seen in "Too Big to Fail"), Juan Garcia (last seen in "Bounce"), Larry Cahn, Sharaud Moore, Cody Chappel, DJ Motiv8, Renee Firestone (last seen in "The Last Laugh" (2016)), Eddie Ilam, Elisabeth Mann, Gloria Ungar, Robert Gonzalez, Palma Lawrence Reed (last seen in "The Soloist"),
RATING: 4 out of 10 glasses of sparkling cider (I know it's non-alcoholic, still, it's not a good look for a high school classroom)
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