JEWISH NEWS WEEKLY: Teacher steers ‘Freedom Writers’ to Holocaust
Teacher steers ‘Freedom Writers’ to Holocaust
by michael fox
correspondent
We could spend hours debating which is the more effective cinematic approach to educating young people about anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, the collar-grabbing melodrama of “Schindler’s List” or a feel-good documentary like “Paper Clips.”
Writer-director Richard LaGravenese offers a third route in “Freedom Writers,” a surprisingly intelligent Hollywood drama based on the true story of a white rookie English teacher at a Long Beach high school and her tough-as-nails class of underrated, undervalued minority students.
The teacher, Erin Gruwell, is portrayed by fresh-faced Hilary Swank as a blend of naïve idealism and can-do gumption. She is the obvious point of identification for middle-class moviegoers, and a lesser film would be all about her rocky road through sacrifice and disappointment to triumph and redemption.
There’s plenty of that here, of course — we’re talking about Hollywood — but LaGravenese wisely works in the voices of the students. At a crucial juncture in the battle for their attention during her first semester, Gruwell assigns them the project of keeping a daily journal. The students read selected entries in voice-over throughout the film, a device that conveys their home (and interior) lives and also gives their point of view the same weight as Gruwell’s.
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