I know what you’re thinking while either looking at Freedom Writers’ DVD box cover or
letting the recent spate of television advertising on teen-centric channels
like MTV roll over you — where’s the accompanying music video with Hilary Swank
and Coolio? Inspired by a true story in which gangbanger Long Beach teenagers were
encouraged to put their angst to paper in the charged years following the 1992 Los
Angeles riots, Freedom Writers leans
heavily on the grooves of audience expectation established by the estimable screen
canon of insistent mentors butting heads with cynical and otherwise hardened
urban teens — movies like Stand and
Deliver, Lean on Me and, yes,
1995’s Dangerous Minds, which starred
Michelle Pfeiffer as an idealist under fire who just happened to also look
particularly good in a leather jacket. Still, a critic’s heart isn’t an automatically
hardened one, and on balance there’s certainly more good than bad in this
ardently pitched if somewhat familiar story of swollen-hearted uplift.
penned and directed by Richard LaGravenese, and stars Swank as Erin Gruwell, a new
high school teacher whose passion and optimism are challenged by a roster of
freshmen juvenile delinquents who test at the very bottom of their class. Using
disparate means (Tupac! Anne Frank!),
respect and racial tolerance, precepts which slowly take hold. Urging her
students that their voices matter, she then gets them to record their feelings
in journals, a class project named in homage to the groundbreaking American
civil rights activists known as the “Freedom Riders.”
about 25 or 30% too hard is the price of dance-with-the-devil modern
moviemaking within the studio system, but you forgive these more and more once
the characters start to sink in and more overt manipulation is avoided. Swank
delivers a dedicated performance, and several of the young cast members also
make a nice impression. The one big area of slip-up is that LaGravenese miscalculates
the pitch and tone of
colleagues (Imelda
and John Benjamin Hickey as a threatened peer), and their sneeringly histrionic
opposition occasionally threatens to sink Freedom
Writers’ otherwise modest charms. Still, the movie slots high in the canon of inspirational cinema, plays even better on DVD
than on the big screen and is
easily worth a rental or even purchase if said genre is in your wheelhouse.
releases, Freedom Writers comes with
Dolby digital 5.1 surround and 2.0 surround English language audio mixes, a
French language 5.1 surround sound mix and optional English subtitles. Swank
and LaGravenese sit for a warm, very friendly audio commentary track in which
much praise is bestowed upon Gruwell, the kids and one another. A very nice 19-minute
making-of special charts the development of the project, which first caught LaGravenese’s
eye after a 1999 Primetime Live report.
Gruwell and Swank share joint recollections in open, effusive fashion, and LaGravenese
talks about the importance of the eyes and faces of his young students, most of
whom were non-actors prior to Freedom
Writers. A 10-minute featurette billed as being “the story behind the story”
unfortunately includes no chats with Gruwell’s real-life students, and in
actuality overlaps a good bit with the aforementioned mini-doc, but what both
of these featurettes share is a lot of great interview footage with the acting
neophytes who comprise Swank’s class. They speak in open-hearted fashion about parallels
between their own lives and the material, and when one young man, Mario Barrett,
lets tears stream from his face, you may find your own heart caught in your
throat for a moment — definitely a rarity for any DVD featurette.
Will.i.am’s positive-minded “I Have a Dream” soundtrack contribution, featuring
recording studio footage and top-notch interview snippets with each of them. Eleven
minutes worth of deleted scenes includes a lot of material centered on another
class field trip, to see Schindler’s List;
these scenes also provide a bit fuller of an arc for the character of
father, played by Scott Glenn, given that they include extended post-screening dinner
conversations. Rounding out the release are a photo gallery, the theatrical
trailer and a collection of trailers for other
releases. B- (Movie) B (Disc)