SCREEN

Freedom Writers

Josh Bell

In this case, Hilary Swank is the idealistic white teacher, Erin Gruwell, who inherits a class of black, Latino and Asian students prone to gang violence and drug use, and not exactly thrilled about reading The Odyssey. Through pluck and determination and a willingness to meet her students on their own terms, Erin turns the class of misfits into a family of confident young scholars. Her primary inspirational tool involves encouraging the students to write diaries about their everyday lives, providing a catharsis for the troubled teens.

Certainly the sentiment behind Freedom Writers is admirable and sound. But writer-director Richard LaGravenese takes such an obvious path to get to his equally plain message that his film contains no surprises or deviations from the well-worn formula. After some tense moments early in the film, Erin easily wins over even the toughest of students, all of whom seem to go from functional illiterates to eloquent diarists within the space of a single scene.

And not that she needed a crack habit, but Erin herself is so unbelievably saintly—and her fellow teachers so snivellingly evil—that she's impossible to believe as anything more than an inspiration-bot. Every student is fundamentally good and easily taught and reformed, and the eventual triumph of the human spirit is so predetermined that it's not particularly satisfying. The music swells, the tears well up, Swank smiles lovingly, and the crack pipe starts to look rather appealing.

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