April Scott Movie:

		List Price: $14.98		Label: Paramount Salesrank: 3696 Released: April 17, 2007
		Our Price: $5.38
		Used Price: $2.42
		MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) Media: DVD

Editorial Review:
A young teacher takes on a class of at-risk students in a violent high school, inspiring them to learn tolerance and to apply themselves through daily writing in a journal.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 31-JUL-2007
Media Type: DVD

Description of Freedom Writers (Full Screen Edition):
Though the "inspirational teacher" theme may feel done to death, Freedom Writers succeeds because it emphasizes the students as much as the teacher. Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby, Boys Don't Cry) comes to a southern California high school bubbling over with naive optimism, but quickly discovers that her unruly classroom isn't easily won over by her good intentions. After a few floundering attempts to connect with her students, Gruwell gives them the assignment of keeping journals about their own lives--an assignment that the class bites into with relish, which eventually bonds them together and pushes racial rivalries aside. This plotline has been made before, sometimes well, sometimes poorly; Freedom Writers, by drawing heavily from the published journals of the students--and thanks to a (mostly) unheroic script, direction that emphasizes individual characters over stereotypes, and rigorous performances from the whole cast--makes the story seem fresh and genuine. Swank does solid work, but the standouts are April L. Hernandez as a girl whose gang wants her to lie and send an innocent boy to jail and Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake) as a teacher who resents Gruwell's offbeat success. Also featuring Patrick Dempsey (Grey's Anatomy), Scott Glenn (The Right Stuff), and a plethora of strong young actors. --Bret Fetzer

Beyond Freedom Writers

More Inspirational Teacher Films on DVD

The Freedom Writers Diary by Erin Gruwell

More DVDs Starring Hilary Swank

Freedom Writers (Full Screen Edition) Reviews:
An Unsung Feel Good Movie
2009-12-05 - Without trying to sound like Roger Ebert, I am going to keep this review simple. The story is very predictable but who cares, Hillary Swank is on top of her game as a young naive teacher in an inner-city school in LA. She has the forgotten children, warehouse them and hope they drop out before senior year. She bucks the system and realizes that failure is not an option.

She reaches out to the children by having the read "The Diary Of Anne Frank" which shows her kids that they are not alone on feeling like they are victims in an unforgiving world.

You will need a box of kleenex to get through this movie and even though his role is very small, Scott Glenn shines through as Hilary's father who stands behind his daughter and realizes that he too has much to learn from her students.

This movie will make a great stocking stuffer.

Hum Ho
2009-12-02 - Place this next to,The Class, a Parisian film with a teacher of literacy with students of not dissimilar disadvantages and issues of racial vilification, and you'll understand that the whole tone of the American product is pitched with a radically varying perspective. Though you might shed the occasional tear for the young student's moments of self-realisation, and feel compassion for the Freedom Writers, there is none of the realism and cathartic whack delivered by its French counterpart. Put simply, in the superior French cinematic experience you don't feel the seperation between actor and audience. In the Californian article, you are aware that Hillary is playing a role, competently enough, but playing nevertheless, when all is done and dusted. Its stylistic pitch is in search of a populist market and consequently reveals the difference between adulthood and adolescence. In this sense, the movie is condescending to whatever audience it has in mind.

Freedom Writers
2009-11-01 - Of this movie "Who Magazine" says, "The scripting and performances are taut and intense". Again, about this movie, "Moviehole" states, "A masterful achievement that engages the mind and touches the heart". Two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank stars in this gripping story of inner-city kids raised on drive-by shootings and hard-core attitude-and the teacher who gives them the one thing they need most: a voice of their own. Dropped into the free-fire zone of a school torn by violence and racial tension, teacher Erin Gruwell battles an uncaring system in a fight to make the classroom matter in her students' lives. Now, telling their own stories, and hearing the stories of others, a group of supposedly "unteachable" teens will discover the power of tolerance, reclaim their shattered lives and change their world. With electrifying from its all-star cast, including Golden Globe Award Winner Patrick Dempsey (Grey's Anatomy)and recording star Mario, FREEDOM WRITERS is based on the acclaimed best-seller, THE FREEDOM WRITER DIARY.

Wonderful story!
2009-10-05 - I have only seen this once but it was such a great story I had to get it on blu-ray. Teachers will love it.

Wonderful movie
2009-10-03 - This was a gift for a friend. I had already seen it....it is a GREAT movie - lots of meaning and true life happenings!