This is a mediocre film. It is not corny enough to be bad, but not insightful enough to be good (on a side note, Michelle Pfeiffer is not believable as a former US marine). It is dealing with a subject that is hard to generalize about, namely education and teaching. At the very least it gets at the complexity of education in an urban environment. But it fails to give an account of why giving up is not an option, or what success would look like. Life requires commitment, and this story shows how tough and emotional living it out can be.
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Sometimes I worry that I've lost the plot. My twitchin' muscles tease my flippant thoughts. I never really dreamed of heaven much until we put him in the ground, but it's all I'm doing now - listening for patterns in the sound of an endless static sea. ~ Conor Oberst
This site is now (mostly) an archive of my writing on film from November 2004 - May 2008. I will link to my articles elsewhere and post the occasional Twitter review.
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Looking for a particular film? Use the Index. I rank films from 1-7, looking for good and well told stories about what it means to be human.
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We are lonesome animals. We spend all of our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say-and to feel- ‘Yes, that is the way it is, or at least that is the way I feel it.’ You’re not as alone as you thought. —John Steinbeck
1 comment:
You know this is based on a true story, right? And I think it once appeared in Reader's Digest as an abridged piece (not sure that that really says anything.)
As for ex-Marines, isn't it possible that some of them DO behave like she did/does? Or is it just cognitive dissonance between our image of an ex-marine, and Pfieffer's portrayal?
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