To the cinema for a preview screening of Freedom Writers. Went not expecting much and knew nothing of the real-life events on which the film is based other than the few bits of publicity I'd seen. But, although it's not a film without its flaws (too much Holocaust and Anne Frank, almost a denial of the ghettos and projects of America, an absurdly quick transition from problem students bordering, one is led to believe, on the unteachable and illiterate to young people voraciously eating books. But, cripes, if there'd been more realism in that department the running time would have gone into weeks, months, maybe years), I found it genuinely moving. When I got home I read a few reviews online. There's a lot of cynicism surrounding this film, lots of reviewers who appeared to be watching with their heads up their arses, and a lot of reviewers who just opted to dust off and rewrite their reviews of other saintly-teacher-saves-apathetic-students films (yes, there's been a lot. Make up your own list if you're bored). Hell, Hilary Swank smiles too much and the strings strike up too often on the soundtrack to keep your tears flowing. But I thought Freedom Writers said a lot. And I don't exit Hollywood's product very often thinking that.
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