by Mike Stuart
26/02/2007
Certificate: 12A
Running Time: 123 minutes
Tell me if you’ve seen this film before: a young, determined teacher, bursting with educational zeal, arrives at a school staffed with hardened cynics and gets put with a class of disenchanted, troubled kids who, at first, resist said teacher’s ebullient optimism but eventually succumb and have a shared life-changing experience. You have seen it, because it’s right there on page two of the big book of film clichés.
This is basically what Freedom Writers is. But, thankfully, it avoids being merely a carbon copy of Dangerous Minds (besides sharing many similarities) because it is based on a true story.
Hilary Swank plays 23 year-old Erin Gruwell, who walks into her new teaching job at Wilson High School, Long Beach, with a multiracial class who are all separated by the raging gang wars between their communities.
At first Gruwell thinks she can turn the whole thing around with a nice smile and a piece of chalk but it soon becomes clear that the curriculum for these student needs a to be a lot more relevant to their lives. A gang-shooting and a student’s racist drawing cause Gruwell to change tack and soon enough she’s challenging the headmaster's authority, and teaching her class about Anne Frank.
Although Freedom Writers is a tad formulaic, and has the annoyance of having teenage actors with Dawson’s Creek Syndrome (they’re clearly over 18 years-old but are playing 14 year-olds), there is something incredibly moving and inspiring about knowing that Erin Gruwell actually existed, faced these struggles and succeeded in doing so. The story translates well to the big screen, contains a solid performance by Hilary Swank, and, perhaps best of all, is backed by a scorching oldschool hiphop soundtrack. If you don’t mind a bit of cheese and fancy a film which will entertain and uplift, Freedom Writers is well worth the entry fee.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Freedom Writers is released in the UK on March 16th, 2007
David Jensen Photography:
https://www.davidjensen.co.uk/
