Want to see another emotional movie about inner-city youth rising up against their circumstances to become resounding successes, a la Dangerous Minds, Stand and Deliver and so on? If so, then Freedom Writers is the movie for you.
Instead of playing a transgender teen or an unlikely prizefighter, Hilary Swank tackles the role of a school teacher in this film. While this MTV-produced film won’t win any Oscars, Swank does turn in an amazing performance as the selfless and tireless Erin Gruwell.
The movie is set in the early ’90s in a gang war-riddled Los Angeles and centers on the racial tension and gang violence between Hispanic, black and Asian groups at the time. Gruwell, a new teacher with a me-against-the-world mentality, doesn’t know what she is getting into when she accepts a job at one of Los Angeles’s most dangerous high schools. Despite resistance from her husband, her boss and her students, Gruwell refuses to give up hope that she can reach her students through books and real teaching.
After what seems like the 1,000th fight of her short career, Gruwell finally finds a way to reach them: She makes them write their life stories into small journals. Gruwell soon finds that the stories in the journals are heart-wrenching tales of loss, abuse and poverty. After the students begin to share their journals in class, they begin to realize they are not so different after all, and soon become inseparable pillars of support for one another.
Even though Freedom Writers’ plot is cliché, it is pulled off with such conviction the viewer can’t help but get sucked in. Besides Swank, the rest of the cast is basically a bunch of nobodies except for fellow lead Patrick Dempsey (Grey’s Anatomy, Sweet Home Alabama) as Gruwell’s unsupportive husband, Scott Casey. However, Dempsey only has a minor, annoying role.
But the newcomers in the film also command attention, such as April L. Hernandez (ER) as Eva, the angry Hispanic girl whom no one takes the time to get to know or understand, and R&B artist Mario, a Baltimore native who plays Andre, one of the many cliché gangster characters in the movie. The rest of the cast, mostly performing in their first or second roles, also do an outstanding job making the viewer feel emotionally involved in the movie.
While this same plotline has played out several times before in the world of Hollywood, Freedom Writers is still an enjoyable experience because of the great acting. Swank proves why she has won those Academy Awards, and the newcomers do a believable job making the movie realistic and engaging. And when you’re done with the movie, check out the book the film was based on, The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them. You might as well do the real-life Gruwell and her Freedom Writers some justice.
Contact reporter Jason Koebler at diversions@dbk.umd.edu.
