Based on the real Long Beach Freedom Writers of the mid-90s.

TxMike

I really enjoyed this movie. The title is an inspiration of the Freedom Riders that traveled through he USA in the 1960s to protest segregation and suffered for the bigger good of all. The teacher and characters are all taken from these students at a Long Beach high school. The teacher was new and ideal, the students were hardened, mostly gang members, and educators had given up on them.

Hilary Swank is Erin Gruwell, the new teacher. Getting little support from the school itself, she took part time jobs to buy the students books, take them on weekend field trips, and have them start writing their own journals, inspired by the Diary of Anne Frank. Eventually they all wrote letters to the Austrian lady, still alive, who had hidden Anne Frank, and raised enough money to have her fly to meet their class.

The point of the movie is to show that in spite of the difficulties you happen to be in, you still have choices, and you can choose to accept others with differences, and choose a different path for your life.

Good story, outstanding acting.

score /10

TxMike 4 May 2007

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1649362/