“Freedom Writers,” a true story about a white teacher trying to make a difference in a room crammed with black, Latino and Asian high school freshmen, has the makings of another groaner. It is inspired by a true story and the diaries of real Long Beach, California teenagers.directed by Richard LaGravenese.two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank stars as English teacher Erin Gruwell. At first, the children are very unfriendly to Gruwell, but she encourages them, and lets them write a diary.All of the diary entries in the film are true and all have been written by the children.After a few days of class, Gruwell and her students get into a debate about racism during which she compares a caricature of a black student with big lips, drawn by a Latino student, to the Nazis' caricatures of Jews with big noses.She then takes her students on a field trip to the Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance to teach them about the Holocaust. One of the books the students read is The Diary of Anne Frank, and money is raised to have Miep Gies come over to talk about the Holocaust. Funny how point of view works. If so many films about so-called troubled teenagers come off as little more than exploitation, it’s often because the filmmakers are not really interested in them, just their dysfunction.“Freedom Writers,” by contrast, isn’t only about an amazingly dedicated young teacher who took on two extra jobs to buy supplies for her students (to supplement, as Mr. LaGravenese carefully points out, a $27,000 salary);it’s also, emphatically, about some extraordinary young people.Mr. LaGravenese keeps faith with the multiple perspectives in the book, which includes Ms. Gruwell’s voice and those of her students, whose first-person narratives pay witness to the effects of brutalizing violence, dangerous tribal allegiances and institutional neglect.The film pops in on Erin and her increasingly troubled relationship with her husband, Scott (Patrick Dempsey), and there’s a really lovely scene between the two that finds them talking ruefully over a bottle of wine about the divide between fantasy and reality in marriage, a divide one partner tries to bridge and the other walks away from.
I didn't know that this movie is based on a true story. It was great and I can't stop my tears to fall down because the intense is so high. I recommend this to everyone.
the story seems very intriguing. this looks like a movie that shows lots of arguments and troubles. I will look forward to see this movie...