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Freedom Writers
Richard LaGravenese (Director)
A friend asked me to review this movie. She found it inspiring and loaded with mental health issues and responses.
Freedom Writers opens with the scene of a Hispanic girl walking out of her front door only to witness the drive-by shooting of a young man. Although the movie makes a few leaps in this opening salvo, I think I connected the dots correctly-the girl's father, a respected member/leader of his community, is unjustly imprisoned for this crime. The message is hammered home at this point-this girl lives in a world where she is not safe from gangs and cannot count on the authorities to administer justice.
The movie quickly settles in for a politically correct accounting of how terrible life can be for many kids in Los Angeles (actually Long Beach). The viewers need not concern themselves about looking for subtle Freudian cues in this movie. The audience is led down a path with side bars so high that it is impossible to slip off the track.
In 1992, the Rodney King-inspired riots stained Los Angeles and gripped the nation. With these memorable scenes as a backdrop, just a few years later, a new and idealistic teacher descends on the troubled youngsters of Woodrow Wilson High School. The teacher is Erin Gruwell and is played by the actress Hilary Swank. The new teacher is given classroom 203, composed of freshmen who segregate by race. One student refers to the various sections as "little Cambodia," "the ghetto," and "South of the border." All students in the class are minorities, save one (and yes, he eventually learns to be hip and to dance). The students are rude, irreverent, and violent. Phrases such as, "We aren't as equal as they are," "My people are a gang," "It comes down to what you look like," and "We fight for territory," provide the backdrop to the tension in the class.
The new teacher comes from an upper-crust kind of family, and we are led to believe that her father (Scott Glenn) is a social activist who...