Movie Review: Freedom Writer

This is one of my favorite movies. This movie is about a school which was  A-list school before and later became a school of violence and students forming separate group of their kind and fighting with each other. A new teacher joins the school and her name is Erin Gruwell and she is going to teach students who are not interested in studying and She also doesn’t have any teaching .The student Erin is teaching are students who are forced to going to school or otherwise they will have to be in prison. Erin is a very enthusiastic teacher but later on she finds out she in a class which have students who are not interested in studying .She her first step to my some progress in teaching the student was to change they places and so she didn’t change they places. For few classes she is not about to get the students to study .One day she is teaching the students ,the bell starts ringing and all the students in the class ran out of the class without telling Erin and she doesn’t understand why the school rang the bell early. She goes out of the school building and finds out that there is a fight happening in the school premises and she feels really bad as she sees her students fighting each other among the various people fighting. Erin goes to the head of the department and asks her if she could get books which she wanted her student to read but she was denied as the head of the department tells her that he students are not capable to read the books and they would return the books in bad condition. This tells us what the impression of the student in the school was. Erin plays a game with the students and she learns that many of her students friends and family member either in jail or were murdered .Erin doesn’t know what to do so she goes to one of the director and tells him that her student s should be taught what she wanted to teach but he tells her he can’t do anything .She then decides to give all her students journals and tells them to write whatever they want but tell them they have to write it and she would just look it they have written by  flipping through the pages and if they wanted her to read them ,they should put it in the cupboard. When Erin opens the cupboard she see all her students books and she starts reading them. She feels really bad for all her student as they were not living a good life and they have undergone lots of pain. This tells us the students in the class want the teacher to understand them. Erin goes to the director of the school and tells him she would be talking her students out and she wanted his support .The director agreed to it as Erin was talking them on a weekend. She takes them to a museum. The museum was about the kids who died in the holocaust and after that she took them to a hotel for dinner which she was working part-time. She also invited some of the   holocaust survivor who shared they story as to how they survived to the students. The student felt really bad about the kids as they died at a very young age in their diaries. This tells us the students had a heart and it was the school management who could understand it and Krin could bring out their felling in the form of a journal. Krin had two part-time jobs so that she could take her student to the museum and got discount at the hotel where she was working part-time.Krin’s Husband started getting anger as he felt that she was giving more attention to her to student and not him.Krin‘s husband wasn’t a supportive person as he left her after some time as he felt she wasn’t taking care of him .Krin didn’t stop from going to school. She gave her students a book on The Diary of Anne Frank. All her students read the book and these were the students which the school management thought would never read books of high vocabulary as management felt that student weren’t interested in studying. When the students came back from their break all of them were happy to see each other .Krin asked everyone to raised a toast for change and there was one student who read from his diary about the change he had undergone after Krin started teaching. When he was read about it few of the student in the class didn’t know him .When he finished talking all of them went to him and gave him a hug as all of them were touched by what he told. One of the students from the Honors class see the kind of unity in the class. She goes to Krin class ask she didn’t like her teacher. Krin gave all her student a book on Anne Frank.  There is one girl who name was Eva in the class who come to the Krin and ask her what happen to Anne Frank after every day and Krin will tell her to read to find out.   When Eva finishes the book she feels really pissed with Krin and tells her that “Why didn’t u tell me that Anne Frank would died “and tell her that “will I also died like her”. Another student Marcus asks her a question as to how many friends of her have been killed and on how many friends of her a story has been written. Marcus also related Anne Frank to his situation .After all the students come to class Krin tells all of them they need to write a review on Anne Frank and she would read them but the students tell her that it would be nice if they could bring her to Long Beach and ask her to read it in front of them and talk more about her book. Krin is hesitant as she doesn’t know how to contact the author and she also tell them she is very old and it will be very expensive to get her. All the students tell her that they could raise the money to get her. The students have various have fund raising events to get the more and on the other side the school is been criticized as the school was not giving them the money to students. Once the students get the money, the author of Anne Frank goes to the college. When she enter the room ,Marcus go to the door to get her and all the student got up as a sign of respect for her .This is one of the best scene as these student didn’t really respect any stranger had a lot of respect for the old lady. The old lady tells the story about Anne Frank to them and tells them how she was save from the solider and how she tried to save Anne .In the end Marcus tells the old lady that she is his Hero and she tells him that what she did was for her friend. She also tell the student that they are the really hero’s and read all they letter and she was very happy to read them. Few days pasted and Krin tells the students that she would be teaching them next year and all of them really mad as they were really happy with her and Marcus call the Krin “Ma” which is a sign of respect and the Krin is really touch by what he told.Krin tries her best to get permission but she is unable to get it. She tells the students and all of them are really disappointed. Later Krin is called for another meeting and in the meet they talk about her unorthodox way of teaching and there are two teacher who want to put Krin’s sprites low so she doesn’t get the permission to teach her students but in the end she is given permission .She goes and tells the students that she would be teaching for two years and all of them are really happy.

    

Vignesh Nathan