Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal save schoolchildren from evil unions in horrible (and horribly misguided) message movie Won’t Back Down.
For an educational reformer, Won’t Back Down’s premise is the sweetest of fantasies — it’s all about spunky parents and teachers reclaiming schools from backward bureaucrats in the name of the children (who are our future, etc).
For moviegoers — a group not mutually exclusive with educational reformers — Won’t Back Down is little more than a throbbing bore. After two hours of thinly veiled rhetoric and cliches worthy of the worst Lifetime Channel original movie, viewers will be disappointed in our nation’s failing school system yet downright angry at the filmmakers for treating the audience like children.
Whenever filmmakers or authors has a statement to make within their fictional work, they walk a fine line between delicately delivering that message and aggressively force-feeding viewers their philosophy.
Won’t Back Down falls on the wrong side of the fence. It’s a film of naive idealism wrapped in lavish melodrama and seated atop a soapbox peppered with all the story beats one might expect from a fantasy tale.
The film follows single mother Jamie Fitzpatrick (Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hysteria), whose dyslexic daughter’s inability to learn in a failing inner-city Pittsburgh school becomes the impetus for her and teacher Nona Alberts’ (Viola Davis, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) battle to take over the school and make it a “better” learning environment.
Cue evasive politicians with questionable intentions, a morally bankrupt teachers’ union and a very adult relationship with a sexy young teacher who’s good with kids and is part of Teach For America and has strong ethical convictions and plays the ukulele and has a dashing smile. (Female lead has to kiss someone, you know.)
As the film drags on, a considerable number of random, often unresolved plot points are thrown into the air in an attempt to make the film seem as though it is taking place in a realistic, dare we say “gritty” setting. Suddenly, Nona is a former drunk driver, our heroes’ union nemesis Evelyn Riske (Holly Hunter, Jackie) wants to quit her job and Jamie is apparently dyslexic as well.
Instead of helping to ground the film in the so-called “true events” it was merely “inspired” by — few labels are as meaningless and as open to abuse — the addition of such contrivances only leads the story further into the realm of disbelief.
Even more unbelievable than the plot is the horrendous dialogue. As great of an actress as Davis is, even she has trouble slogging through the terrible wordplay.
Every line reeks with the stench of agenda, from the characters who never fail to quote percentages and memorable educational leaders to the characters who speak with such gravitas as to completely violate the established boundaries of their fictional station.
From beginning to end, there is rarely a moment when viewers can feel as though they aren’t just sitting in a theater watching an emotionally manipulative and unsuccessful film.
If you aren’t vomiting on the floor of the theater when Jamie’s dyslexic daughter finally pronounces the word “hope” at the very end of the movie (cut to black, cue Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down”), then you obviously have a stronger stomach than most for rotten cheeseball antics.
No matter how you slice it, Won’t Back Down is an overproduced mess whose creators — Daniel Barnz (Beastly) and Brin Hill (Ball Don’t Lie) — would rather tell us how to feel than let us decide for ourselves.
As human beings, I would think we all deserve a little more credit than that.
(Side Note: If you really want to know what’s going on in our country’s education system, watch the award-winning 2010 documentary Waiting for Superman.)
berman@umdbk.com
