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Despite being mistreated by most of the students, Ellen has something that even the students don't have: faith. She even takes them to a museum about the holocaust, and has some holocaust survivors speak to the students about their experiences (played in the film by actual holocaust survivors). Imelda Stanton, one of the best character actresses in the business, is brilliant as Mrs. Campbell. "Just because you are teenagers doesn't mean you can't be a small light in the darkness."Ellen Gruwell gives everything of herself for these kids.
It isn't as formulaic in which the "big, powerful moment" only comes at the end. Ellen uses the example of the holocaust to finally begin to peak some interest in the class. One teacher tells Ellen, "If you can teach them some obedience and discipline, then you will have made a tremendous accomplishment." This isn't near enough "accomplishment" for Ellen. Ellen Gruwell is certainly that. If the students want her to read the journals (which isn't required) they can discreetly leave them in a cabinet in the classroom. "Freedom Writers" is a tremendous film about an extraordinary teacher with extraordinary students.
Perhaps it demonstrates that what these kids want more than anything else, is for someone to believe in them; for someone to be a beacon and show them that they can change; that they can make different choices and that it is never too late. Freedom Writers tells a true story of young Ellen Gruwell who is in her very first year of teaching at Wilson High School in Long Beach, California. She feels it in her bones that these kids can succeed. Nobody really thinks they can do anything, and nobody else really cares if they succeed or not. Being a teacher myself, I understand this enthusiasm. Campbell embodies these teachers, and Stanton does this extremely well.One of the most powerful moments in this film is when, after reading the "Diary of Anne Frank," the students want to meet the woman who hid Anne Frank.
Freedom Writers is an inspirational film with some edge. Most of them feel that she can never understand who they are, the lives they lead, and why they feel that life is all but hopeless for them. However, she opens up the cabinet to find that the whole class has left their journals there for her to read. They simply go through the motions and try to get through a day. Ellen probably thought she would be lucky to find even one journal there.
She can scarcely get their attention, much less teach them anything. And yet, sometimes it isn't the experience that is needed as much as the belief and faith in the students. She's eager and can't wait to get into the classroom. However, Ellen's idea of creating a journal for the students was brilliant. Many of the students feel that they are living out their own version of the holocaust, since many of them pray that they will live to reach adulthood. She shows up and shares her experience. Swank is also able to bring Gruwell's naivety about teaching to light.
Mrs. Ellen's first hurdle is to gain the respect of the students. Even the white student soon finds himself accepted and among friends as the hate and anger are replaced with tolerance, friendship, and understanding. And despite the abuse she takes in the beginning, she never, NEVER loses her focus or her zeal and enthusiasm to teach and believe in her students.
Oh yeah, there's one caucasian student who, throughout the first half of the film, wishes he was anywhere else but there. I'm glad the writers decided not to tone down the story too much, as most of the students came from "gang" environments, and the film showcases this with some scenes of gang violence. These are the kids who have beent thrown into classrooms. They've given up.
I've seen teachers who have taught for a number of years who have lost that faith. There are no requirements. She's a woman who has been teaching for nearly 30 years. As a consequence, both Ellen and her students begin to develop a bond. This begins to have a very powerful and profound effect as the students begin to look within themselves. She finds herself amidst a number of Latino, African-American, and Asian students. She feels slighted that a woman with minimal teaching experience can come in and make a difference. One thing that makes this movie work so well, is that the film has many powerful and touching moments in it.
Gruwell has her own battles to fight, including getting two extra jobs so she can buy books and other things for her students. Most people don't realize that writing is a very healing activity. She believes in them, even when nobody else does; not even members of their own families. She has such range with her abilities from "Boys Don't Cry" to "Million Dollar Baby." Swank brings Ellen Gruwell to life without making Gruwell seem larger than life. This actually makes the journey they take together all the more powerful because most of the students shown here are kids on the verge of ending up in jail or dead. When one student stands up and says, "You are my hero." She quickly turns things around as an opportunity to empower these kids.
They hold fundraisers to earn enough money to send for her. Hilary Swank is one of the best actresses today. Ellen creates a safe environment for them.
Racial barriers quickly begin to fade, as each student realizes that they are not all that different from each other. Ellen's first attempts to teach them anything fails. Her dedication and devotion to them costs her her marriage.
Ellen gives them the freedom to write whatever they want. She finds herself learning and understanding her students in a very deep and personal way as the journals offer her a connection. "No, YOU are the heroes," she says.
Everyone can be a small light in the darkness.
The Bottom Line:Freedom Writers sometimes cleaves to formula, but the emotions it generates are real, its characters reasonably nuanced, and its acting high caliber enough to raise the film above the tired genre of "inspirational teacher" films.
This movie was delivered as advertised, on time and in perfect condition. Will use this Amazon supplier again.
Teaching as a project, but what is that. You have to love them and make them feel happy and glad to be loved and free to love back, and that love is called respect. The worst things the do-nothing-change-nothing self-satisfied senior teachers may say will come then when they realize the relation has become personal between the teacher and the students. But love is the real wrapping of this little pebble, the wrapping that provides everyone with the warmth that may take you across the winter, the spring flood of the local river or a divorce. That's not very difficult actually, because they want to know how to read, write, speak English and even calculate, compute, multiply and divide at ease. Comfortable for do-little personnel.
But totally deadly and morbid for the kids, but who cares about the kids who are flunkies and unable to be anything else. A project it is to let the students dictate the class, the syllabus, the method, the themes and the objectives, though the objectives are also slightly determined by the teachers from time to time, at least by making the students discuss them and agree on them. The central subject of any pedagogical project, and not a project like the dilapidated new housing projects for ghetto people who are not kept in a ghetto any more but in a separate urban area where they are supposed to only hurt themselves or one another, is teaching. The film is discreet about this last part of the opposition to that new method of dealing with "flunkies", but it is constantly present in the back of their eyes (the dirty voyeurs they are) and of their minds (if they have a mind of their own). But it is "love" that is needed her. They may one day have a sharp word with the teacher and some angry remarks about the class or the school. A very delicate and tender film about the least tender people in the world, the kids from the projects that have replaced the ghettos after the last riots in Los Angeles.
The most difficult part is to love the students. It is to flush down the toilet the syllabus, the pre-digested and pre-fabricated classes and courses, you know that course that is produced once and for all till the teacher retires. They will insinuate that it is far beyond that personal and has reached the intimate level. But that is only the easy part of the project because it is the jam that is going to bring the sweet teeth and sweet tongues of the students together. In the film the English teacher says "like" not to antagonize the colleagues, not to give them an easy argument to speak of perversion. And there some may even get scared, or frightening to others, parents particularly, with innuendo and slandering. It gives you a taste of change so you can toast change on a pit and enjoy the sweet marshmallow that stuffs that change to the very brim.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, CEGID
I can't begin to explain how phenomenal this movie is. I would encourage everyone to watch it.I think it would be great for teachers to watch with their students and parents to watch with their teens. I think it would inspire some great conversation.
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