PG-13 | 2 h 3 min | Drama, Biopic | 2007
In 2021, at least 31 U.S. states reported rising high-school dropout rates, over twice that in the previous year. That wouldn’t be as tragic if it weren’t for the fact that graduates are likelier than dropouts to secure jobs, earn better salaries, and escape street crime, addiction, and race-related gangsterism. It’s why Erin Gruwell’s heroism 30 years ago at Wilson High School, Long Beach, California, is staggering.
Heartwarming stories by Gruwell and her first students inspired a book and later screenwriter-director Richard LaGravenese’s film “Freedom Writers.”
In 1994, Wilson High’s Margaret Campbell (Imelda Staunton), hiring a visibly idealistic Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank) to teach Freshman English, warns that many students are just out of or en route to juvenile hall, come from broken homes, and can barely read or write. Others spray graffiti or sport guns to enforce tribalism around color or class identities.
That “battle” deters lesser teachers because it entails too many defeats and too few victories. Gruwell succeeds as a teacher because she stays a student of learning: caring, humble, open, positive.
Her colleagues, husband, father, and her students themselves are out to convince her that trying to “reform” her class is a lost cause. Instead of flinching at the odds facing her, including resentment because she’s a stereotypical outsider, Gruwell chips away at the far stiffer odds that her students face: poor parents, foolish friends, and selfish siblings.
Campbell grins at Gruwell’s incongruous pearl set, “I wouldn’t wear them to class.” Gruwell wears them anyway as a defiant act of trust. Her students aren’t thieves and she won’t treat them so, and they repay her trust. Instead of talking down to them, Gruwell listens. Gradually, they warm to her, alive to the price she’s paying, including estrangement from her husband at home. In turn, she shows that no matter how victimized they feel, there’s always someone else who’s as, if not more, deserving of empathy.
LaGravenese breathes life into his student characters as a group and as individuals. Eva’s defensive because her father was arrested without just cause. Marcus lives apart from his mother, near “the projects.” Gloria fears teenage pregnancy and the poverty that shadows it. Andre’s brother is in jail.
Through flashbacks and voiceovers you get to feel their pain, anger, and regret. An outstanding Swank, as Gruwell, shares all that but asks what they’re going to do about it: Wallow in self-pity and lash out in retaliation, or double down, work harder, exercise restraint, and earn respect?
Once, Gruwell plays a game with tape stuck across the floor in the middle of the classroom, while she fires questions. From either side, students must step up to that tape if their answer’s “yes” and step back if it’s “no.” Slowly, and as students are forced to face each other at the tape, Gruwell moves from trivia around music and film to introspection: Do they know someone in jail or in a gang? Have they lost family or friends to violence?
It’s quite a sight. Students who step up fancying they’re unique in their loss or suffering are stunned to be staring at classmates they otherwise shun or bully who’ve weathered worse. It unites those fortunate (they eventually stepped back) with those less so (still at the tape at game close).
Gruwell’s experiment helps them look beyond looks, beyond street slang, hairstyles, tattoos, rings, bracelets, caps, and T-shirts with forbidding slogans. It helps them see beyond swagger and accept how superficial these symbols are—pretending to help them stand out from a class or belong to a club, but in reality doing neither.
