'Writers' passes test of youth in conflict

Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 5, 2007 at midnight

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A capsule description of Freedom Writers might not do much to sell you on the movie, but here goes: An enthusiastic teacher finds ways to reach recalcitrant students in a California high school.

No question: This one seems to have so much "been-there-done- that" potential that you walk in expecting the cliches to prove as irritating as fingernails on a chalkboard.

But Freedom Writers gradually finds its place in the cinematic classroom, telling a moving story and boasting a fine performance from Hilary Swank, as a teacher who's simply incapable of being daunted. And, no, the story isn't a total rehash of every other similar movie.

In 1994, Swank's Erin Gruwell arrives at Long Beach's Wilson High School with high ideals. She quickly learns that her classroom isn't quite the laboratory for diversity she expected; rather, it's a field of conflict. The black, Latino and Asian students don't get along, and almost all the youngsters are more committed to cultivating attitude than learning anything.

"Don't try to understand us," one of them warns the prim-looking Gruwell, the presumption being that a white teacher has no clue what it's like to grow up in neighborhoods where it's almost impossible to reach 16 without having lost a friend to gang violence.

Based on a true story, Freedom Writers eventually gets around to writing. Gruwell encourages her students to keep diaries. They can leave them for her to read or not, but she wants them to stay with it. (Published in 1999, The Freedom Writers Diary contains many of the kids' essays.)

After an ugly racial incident in her classroom, Gruwell interests her students in the Holocaust. She uses The Diary of Anne Frank as an entry point, and the students slowly expand their views of the world.

Richard LaGravenese (The Fisher King and The Bridges of Madison County) directs in a straightforward manner, laying out Gruwell's many challenges. Her husband (Patrick Dempsey) ultimately wearies of his wife's nonstop commitment. Her father (Scott Glenn) once worked in the civil rights movement, but doubts that Gruwell's students can be reached. And Gruwell's enthusiasm isn't exactly contagious: Imelda Staunton plays a teacher who thinks Gruwell should stick to more traditional methods.

Of the students, at least one stands out. April Lee Hernandez portrays Eva, a youngster who has built a protective wall around herself. She becomes involved in a part of the story that brings important issues of trust and loyalty into focus.

The movie makes it biggest emotional impact in a scene in which the woman who hid the Frank family visits the students. By this time, Gruwell's charges have come to see the Nazis as a kind of gang gone wild. They're deeply moved by testimony from Miep Gies (Pat Carroll), and so are we.

It's difficult not to be touched by the story of young people who work this hard. Whether Gruwell's approach has wider applications is a matter for educators to debate. For now, it's enough that Freedom Writers - taking its cue from Gruwell - respects the viewpoints of youngsters whose lives too often carried them into battle zones.

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