Poised as a diatribe on the abysmal state of the American education system and gang violence in Long Beach, California, “Freedom Writers” is based on the true story of neophyte high school teacher Erin Gruwell (Hillary Swank) who broke with convention to inspire her troubled students during the mid-‘90s.
Writer/director Richard LaGravenese milks audience empathy with so much voice-over narration that he may as well have recorded the story as a books-on-tape product.
Swank’s starry-eyed character assigns her students to keep diaries about their lives, and teaches lessons about the Holocaust via “The Diary of Anne Frank” to give them a sense of place and decency.
Compared to a film like “Boyz From The Hood,” this is cinema activism lite. Imelda Staunton (“Vera Drake”) gives an outstanding performance as the school’s status quo-keeping principal whose privately racist agenda is eaten away at by Gruwell’s profound efforts with her class.
In 1999 Erin Gruwell published the students’ work as “The Freedom Writers Diary.”
Rated PG-13. 123 mins.
