The Freedom Writers
- What is the film about?
- Young teacher Erin Gruwell, goes for a job at Woodrow Wilson Classical High School for freshman and sophomore years. She gets an English class 203, with kids that don’t come to school. At the start of film, the kids start having problems in class, but not just in class. In the outside world, friends and family of the students of 203 are dying, shot, stabbed or dying in crashes etc. But as the students and Ms Gruwell start to make a friendship, the students start behaving in school and in the outside world. Ms Gruwell starts having three jobs and taking the kids to trips, getting books to read and even got Jewish Concentration Camp survivors to come and have a talk with the students. Then Ms Gruwell and her partner, who started to get quite upset that he wasn’t spending time with her, divorced. At this part of the novel, Ms Gruwell is quite upset and sad, but still comes to school with her cheerful smile. At the end of sophomore year, the students ask Gruwell if she’ll be their teacher in junior year. There is a massive meeting and Gruwell manages to win and teaches Room 203 for junior and senior year. The end credits come up and most of them were the first in there family to graduate high school.
- What did I like about the film?
- What I liked about the film was that there was a bit of gang violence, not because its ‘cool’, but because it shows what actually happens to kids, 15-18 years old, in America and what some of them have to go through. There is another story that I can relate to. Rodney King, the taxi driver that was pulled over by the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) and beaten half to death, the video going viral in minutes. I can relate because most of the kids in Room 203 get beaten, or there friends and family that do. This part of the film showed that life isn’t all rainbows and sunny days. Another part would be when the Jewish survivors came and talked to the students about their struggles of life. That showed that everyone has problems, but not as bad as some.
- Compare The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.
- I can compare the film to novel by what happens to Junior and the students and Ms Gruwell. The film shows what happens and how hard it is living in America, the troubles you can just walk into. But the novel tells you about how hard it is to be an Indian.
- Messages in the films.
- That everyday is a struggle and that friendship is the best thing in life.
