DVD Review: Freedom Writers

By Jeff Swindoll Apr 16, 2007, 17:52 GMT

A young teacher (Swank) inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school. ...more

A new teacher is given a classroom full of inner-city kids as her fledgling assignment.  She decides to try and make a difference in their lives instead of just marking time in her classroom, but she might find that is harder than she thinks. 

Based on a true story.  Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank) is a novice teacher that is dropped into a class full of inner city kids that have been bused into the more prosperous Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California.  She’s supposed to be teaching freshman English but the class is less than attentive.  It’s 1994 and the community is still stinging from the race riots in Los Angeles that occurred over the Rodney King verdict. 

The head of the teachers, Margaret Campbell (Imelda Staunton – practicing for her role as Delores Umbridge in the next Harry Potter no doubt), is less than understanding about the situation and really doesn’t want to provide the resources that Erin needs to reach out to the kids in her class – preferring to provide the honors class with them.  Erin is struggling in the classroom until the class passes around a caricature of one of the other students and she’s reminded of an image that she saw in the Museum of Tolerance.  She questions the kids and they’ve never even heard of the Holocaust (What’s the Holocause?).  She then sets out to teach the students by using the Holocaust and the Diary of Anne Frank, again with no help from the administration.  She begins to connect with the class but finds that her husband Scott (Patrick Dempsey) is drifting away from her.

At first, I thought that I’d not like Freedom Writers since you think that it’s going to be a retread of Lean on Me, Stand and Deliver, or Dangerous Minds.  But as the movie unspooled I found myself getting into the story and predicaments and actually thought the movie turned out to be quite good. 

Hilary Swank starts off the show as a naïve, pearl-wearing, constantly smiling teacher and we get to see the progression as she learns that she might be the only one that cares about these kids.  We also get to see the progression of the kids from street thugs (even the girls) to kids that begin to care about Erin as well as becoming educated and making better of themselves.  To my memory (so if it happened in those other films – mea culpa), Freedom Writers adds a different level to Erin as we see how her devotion to her students affects her domestic life with her husband [spoiler] realistically it doesn’t end particularly well – no happy domestic endings for this film [/spoiler]. 

I first found myself thinking that it was going to just be a carbon copy of those other films but as it progressed I found myself drawn into the story and characters and rooting for them. 

Freedom Writers is presented in anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions.  Special features include a commentary by director Richard Lagravenese and Hilary Swank.  There are 11 minutes of deleted scenes.  The first featurette is the 5 minute “Making a Dream” which interviews recording artists Common and will.i.am on the song that’s featured in the movie.  The second is the 19 minute “Freedom Writers Family” which interviews Lagravenese, Mario [Barrett] (“Andre”), Jason Finn (“Marcus”), April Hernandez (“Eva”), Gabriel Chavarria (“Tito”), Hilary Swank, the real life Erin Gruwell, Hunter Parrish (“Ben”), Vanetta Smith (“Brandy”), Giovonnie Samuels (“Victoria”), and Deance Wyatt (“Jamal”). 

The final featurette is the 10 minute “Freedom Writers: The Story behind the Story” which adds producer Stacey Sher and Sergio Montalva (“Alejandro”) to the mix.  The other special features include the theatrical trailer, a photo gallery, and previews of other Paramount titles. 

I don’t think Freedom Writers burned up the box office because people thought that they were going to get a carbon copy of Dangerous Minds, etc.  It does have moments that seem to remind of those types of films, but it still has moments of inspiration.

Freedom Writers is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.