I watched the movie 'Freedom Writers', late Sunday night which in essence is Monday morning. Now this is half a movie review and half expressing my thoughts thanks to the movie. Just to put out the positives, I must say although this is not one of Hilary Swank' best acting roles yet, she manages to portray the character with such grace and elegance. Patrick Dempsey (the dude in Grey's Anatomy, McDreamy) managed to show a glimpse of his acting prowess almost at the end of the movie and admittedly I felt like he left it (or the writers) a bit late. I The rest of the cast was fairly average but after watching the movie for a while you will pay less attention to their acting abilities.
When I started watching the movie I started to dissect the movie from a technical angle. The lighting, the acting, sound, editing and everything else that you can think of in what makes a good movie. Of course that does not neglect the story line as is what makes a movie great. Mid way in the movie I wanted to stop it as I did not think it qualified to be a great movie. Yet I hesitated. I hesitated because I was wrong. You can not just judge a movie only on technical aspects but at times you have to draw the heart of the whole production. It is a good movie. Good in that it addresses an issue that is such a cancerous tumor with seemingly little hope of visible cure.
Racism is another form of discrimination that continues determine people's decisions and of course ultimately whether they get to fulfil the purpose for which they were created in this world. Cases of racial discrimination still continue to dominate not just the South African society in the news headlines but the world at large.
So what has all this got to do with the movie. The movie address us, 'discrimination'. We live it, we speak it, we think it, we make decisions based on it it and we will die of it. We may think we not part of it, yet subconsciously we as discriminatory as the some of the worst perpetrators of discrimination in history.While we may not be as explicit in such acts, we live our day to day lives tolerating such injustices and become desensitized to it.
Freedom Writers is a movie of hope. I movie of understanding that despite the prejudice of this world we should never at all make decisions or live our lives under the shadow of deep seated hatred for others because of their culture, race and sex. Instead we should celebrate each other's diversities or at best marry into it. So the movie 'Freedom Writers' may not be the best in a text book recipe of what makes a good movie. Its a good movie in that it is not shy in tackling issues that have continued unabated for centuries and giving us hope by celebrating other's differences. Its a good movie as it shows that if we do stand for what is right it will be difficult. You might lose your friends and at worst your family. The question would then be, 'Is it worth it? I don't know. Maybe what one needs to ask is of love. Is love worth it? So go watch it if you still have not and discover the love in all of us despite our differences.
