Freedom Writers Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)January 4th, 2007
FREEDOM WRITERS
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2007 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): * 1/2
Completely flat, FREEDOM WRITERS is a well-intentioned dog, but a dog nonetheless, that the studio has dumped into that cinematic wasteland, the January-February release schedule. Telling a story that you've heard a hundred times before and usually much better, the movie isn't helped by being (loosely? closely?) based on a true story. The young actors in the cast demonstrate remarkably little talent, as they play the inner city students upon which the story is based. Only two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank, as their dedicated teacher, turns in any noticeable acting, but the movie's clichéd script makes her work relatively wasted.
Even TV's McDreamy from "Grey's Anatomy" can't breathe any life into the dreary production. Patrick Dempsey could only be called McAwful, but it's not his fault. It's the script which gives him nothing to do as the lonely husband of the teacher who ignores everyone but her students. Only in a short scene in which the husband tells the wife how hopeless she is as a marital companion is Dempsey ever permitted to actually act. In most scenes, he is just slightly more important than the room's wallpaper.
As Erin Gruwell, Swank is an idealistic young teacher whom we meet on her first day at Wilson High School. Dressed in a stiff red suit, offset with a fancy pearl necklace, she is almost giddy as she meets her first class of kids. (The story subtly suggests that she only teaches one class a day, but I suspect reality was a bit more complicated.) Once in their chairs and comfortably organized in their own "tribes," the "students" do what they came for, which is to fight rather to learn. Of course, Erin will soon change all of that and have doing everything but singing Kumbaya together. Her trick is that she takes them to a Holocaust museum, an event in world history of which every one of them was completely unaware, where her kids end up empathizing with the Jews. Later she has them reading "The Diary of Anne Frank," much to the consternation of her department head, played sternly and brittlely by Imelda Staunton.
Before we get to the healing stage in which the kids write diaries full of their innermost thoughts, they first vent their frustrations to "Miss G." Basically all of the racial groups (Hispanic, Cambodian, African-American, etc.) hate each other and kill each other but blame the whites for all their woes. In one sad scene, everyone, save the one token white kid in the class, indicates they have lost at least one good friend to gang violence. Many have lost three or more. Their stories should be touching but aren't, as FREEDOM WRITERS has everyone, save Swank, just going through the motions.
FREEDOM WRITERS runs 2:03. It is rated PG-13 for "violent content, some thematic material and language" and would be acceptable for kids around 12 and up.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, January 5, 2007. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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