REVIEW: Freedom Writers

Mar - 22 | By: Josh Nelson | no comments.

Take one new teacher (preferably white and inexperienced), add to this a classroom of underachieving students, throw in equal parts of violence, domestic abuse, and racial tension. When tempers begin to simmer slowly mix in an inspirational speech, obstructive educational board hierarchy, and finish with a healthy dose of saccharine. Best served when light and fluffy.

So goes the recipe for the ‘classroom drama’ narrative that has long been a staple on the Hollywood menu, providing films such as Dead Poets Society, Lean On Me, Stand And Deliver, The Emperor’s Club and the recent dance variation, Step Up. Taken only as the sum of its ingredients, Freedom Writers does not appear to offer anything particularly new to the genre. Fresh teacher Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank) takes a job teaching a racially diverse and under-performing freshmen class during the height of the 1992 L.A. riots. However, in spite of their initial antipathy towards her, and each other, Gruwell gradually earns their trust and sets about instilling in them a passion for education, and a self-belief eroded through hate and violence.

If the plot sounds overly sentimental then you needn’t be too worried, Freedom Writers is not just about seeing ‘bad’ kids make ‘good’. Forcing them to approach their gang violence from an historical perspective, Gruwell reaches out to them through the Holocaust, confronting them with the dangers of collective racism and territorial conflicts. Swank brings an earnest integrity to the role of Gruwell and is matched by an excellent ensemble cast as the troubled teens. The end result is a film that is both sincere and heartfelt in its articulation of the problems confronting ethnic working class America, but is not so idealistic as to suggest that those issues can be solved simply through the actions of one teacher. Instead, the film creates a space where the potential for change can at least seem like a possibility and that’s a laudable quality.