Photo by: Paramount Pictures
Some of us have been lucky enough to have that one teacher who has changed our lives, who believed in us when we didn’t believe in ourselves, and who helped us become greater than we ever thought we could be.
For me, it was my sixth grade English teacher. For the students of room 203 at Wilson High School, in the film “Freedom Writers,” it was Erin Gruwell.
“Freedom Writers,” starring Hilary Swank (“Million Dollar Baby”), Patrick Dempsey (“Grey’s Anatomy”), and Scott Glenn (“Journey to the End of the Night”), chronicles a first-time teacher’s struggle to make a difference in lives of inner-city students.
The audience first finds itself feeling almost sorry for the wide-eyed Erin, who eagerly shows up on her first day at Wilson High School in a tailored suit and pearls, a stark contrast to the baggy jeans and tattoos littering the campus.
Despite warnings from the school’s higher-ups, she believes she truly can get through to her class of at-risk English students.
However, her first day tests Erin’s patience, as she soon learns that she has little in common with her students. A game she all but forces them to play reveals that most are involved with gangs, and almost all have lost a friend to violence on the streets.
Though her colleagues, husband and father all expect Erin to give up, she keeps at it and eventually falls in love with her students. She takes on two more jobs just to buy the kids new books, and devotes her nights and weekends to taking them on field trips where they can apply their lessons to the real world.
Through all of this, Erin proves that every child has the capacity to be great, as long as someone believes in them. She also proves to the audience that she is not the innocent, soft spoken teacher that we once sympathized with.
Hilary Swank shines as the eager and passionate Erin Gruwell in what might be her most convincing and truly compelling role to date.
In watching Swank, a viewer can’t help but fall in love with Erin almost as much as she fell in love with her class.
There are also a host of young actors who excelled as the tough, but impressionable students in Ms. Gruwell’s English class.
April Lee Hernandez delivers an exceptionally outstanding performance as Eva, a troubled girl who eventually opens up about her difficult home life.
The admiration these students show their teacher by the end of the film is astounding, and the cast comes together seamlessly to deliver a remarkably believable performance.
“Freedom Writers” proves that a film can be simultaneously heartwarming and genuine, a combination that is hard to pull off.
This movie is worth seeing if only to commemorate such a remarkable woman and the brilliant cast that brought her to life on the screen.
