Their story. Their words

The Freedom Writers, 2007, is based on the true story of Erin Gruwell. It is a MTV Films and Paramount Pictures, starring Hilary Swank, Patrick Dempsey, April L. Hernandez, and Jason Finn. It is directed by Richard LaGravenese.

The movie is about a teacher starting out at a new school, she gets grades 9-10. These students are looked upon by the school as reject, they don’t want to be there and everyone feels the school would be a better place without them. The students grow up in a lower class community; they grew up knowing gangs and learned a lot from them. Their attitude is carried into the classroom, making it hard for Mrs. Gruwell, or “Mrs. G”.

The Freedom Writers reminded me of the movie The Gridiron Gang because it is very similar. The Gridiron Gang, stars Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson as Sean Porter. Sean works at a prison for youth. Most of the inmates at the prison are from either the gang called “the 88’s” or the gang called “the 95’s”. The gangs are constantly getting arrested, getting sent to this youth prison, then getting out again and getting sent back, everything keeps repeating. Sean sees that the kids have no discipline or no respect for nobody. Sean deals with the same type of people as Erin Gruwell. They both deal with gangs, and they are both trying to help them. Mrs. Gruwell helps them by letting them express their feeling by writing them as Sean lets them express their feelings through foot ball. They learn the importance of a team, and working together. Sean changes the lives of the kids, most moving on with a better life.

Hilary Swank’s acting is very well done, playing the part of Mrs. Erin Gruwell. You really feel that her part was made for her; she’s gets into character so well. I felt sorry for her at the first of the movie because she portrayed herself as this woman that could not handle the class room. As the movie progressed she gets more “back bone” and starts putting the students in their places.

What I got from the theme of this is movie is that no matter what you face and no matter what people tell you, you can accomplish anything you want to.