Movie Review: Won’t Back Down

In Won’t Back Down, Jamie Fitzpatrick (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a frustrated single mother to a dyslexic child. Her child’s teacher won’t do anything to help her daughter get the special help she needs to overcome her dyslexia and learn how to read. After a lot of persuasion, Jamie enlists the help of another teacher at the school, Nona Alberts (Viola Davis), to help her take control of the school using California’s “parent-trigger” law. With enough parent and teacher signatures, the parents can take over the school, basically turning it into a charter school.

At the beginning of the film, it states that is inspired by true events. By this, they mean that it is loosely based on what could happen if California’s parent-trigger law were used successfully. The actual school and people in this movie are fictional.

I love feel good, inspirational movies about teachers and/or parents turning kids and schools around – Stand and Deliver and The Ron Clark Story are two of my favorite examples. I didn’t get that same inspired feeling from watching Won’t Back Down. For one, the “parent-trigger” law isn’t explained very well and at times it’s unclear what the ultimate goal/plan of Jamie and Nona’s is if the school is taken over.

Also, this film has a strong anti-teachers’ union slant. Coming from a long line of educators, that is not something I can abide – especially when the representation of the teachers’ union in this movie is just not realistic. For instance, I find it very hard to believe that a real union would FORBID teachers from staying after school to help students if that’s what the teachers wanted to do. Also, having tenure does not mean that you don’t have to do your job or that you can abuse students.

At the beginning of the film, Nona is a beaten down, burned out teacher. Davis plays her almost robotically. At times I had trouble understanding her dialogue because it she muttered it so tonelessly. After her fabulous performance in The Help, my expectations of her are high and she didn’t quite meet them in this movie. Holly Hunter also gives a somewhat wooden performance as a union official. In her case, I think that she has too much Botox and it’s impeding her ability to emote. Gyllenhaal was a bright spot in this movie – her portrayal of a single mother was tough, yet optimistic and charming.

I think making an entertaining film based on a complicated legal statute is a tough job and Won’t Back Down wasn’t quite up to it. That’s not to say that I wasn’t entertained but it was hard for me to get past my issues with the plausibility of the plot as a whole.

Won’t Back Down opens in theaters tomorrow.

(I received complimentary tickets for an advance screening of this movie from a publicist.)