I wonder why is it that whenever I want to write about a
movie I like a lot, I seem to get tongue-tied.
It is as if no matter how much I write or how well I
explain, I will never be able to fully express to my readers why I like it so
much, especially when the movie is based on a true story.
That’s exactly what happened to this week’s review. I’ve
been meaning to talk about it for a long time, but I always find an “excuse” to
postpone it and leave it for another day… until now.
I have watched this movie at least four times and it never
seizes to amaze me.
It’s the story about a woman named Erin Gruwell (played by
Hilary Swank), who after having followed a different career, decides it’s time
to fulfill her lifelong dream of being a teacher. She applies in one of the
schools and is thrilled when she gets the job.
She prepares herself in every way for her first day. She
chooses her best outfit, arrives early and stands there eagerly and nervously
waits for her students. You can see her happiness in her face. Her dream will
finally come true. She will be able to teach what she knows to a whole class of
young people and hopefully make them see the world a little bit the way she
does.
She is very inexperienced but oh how she hopes she will be
able to inspire them somehow!
And then one by one, the students start to come in room 203,
where they will have their English classes with the new teacher and as they do
so, she smiles at them… she wants to make them feel welcomed.
But she wasn’t prepared for what she saw in their faces.
Nobody returned her warm welcome; instead she saw coldness, anger, disinterest,
hatred, racism, resistance, prejudice, conflict, anguish, fear… and all that on
the first day! Each student sat with their own “group”, turned their desks away
from the front of the class and just did their own thing. All they wanted was
for the bell to ring so they could go to the next class and then go home. Nobody
cared about her, nobody cared that she was there.
Needless to say her first day as a teacher was a complete
disaster and the following days were no different. She would try and teach them
but nobody paid any attention. She then started to learn that most the students
in her classroom and in the whole school were gang members; they carried knives
and guns into school, they fought among themselves, they fought outside school,
many were poor, some were homeless and none, not one, believed they could be
somebody in life.
They didn’t respect her and didn’t care about anything she
had to say or teach.
So, maybe wanting to be a teacher wasn’t a good idea after
all.
Maybe some dreams never come true… maybe making a difference
somewhere or in somebody’s life is not for everyone. And by looking at
everything that is going wrong in your life, you realize that maybe… maybe you
are just not good enough.
Who has never faced a difficult situation or a great
disappointment that left you felling exactly that way?
I know I have.
And so after reading this you might ask, “How can this movie
be any good? If this is the story, why should I watch it?”
Well, here’s when the story starts getting really
interesting…
I haven’t told you the best part yet.
Come back here next Friday and I will ;)
