Won’t Back Down (Blu-ray) Directed by Daniel Barnz Studio: 20th Century Fox Year: 2012 Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 1080p AVC codec Running Time: 121 minutes Rating: PG Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 English; Dolby Digital 5.1 Spanish, French Subtitles: SDH, Spanish
Region: A MSRP: $ 29.99
Release Date: January 15, 2013
Review Date: January 13, 2013
The Film
3/5 When single mother Jamie Fitzpatrick (Maggie Gyllenhaal) realizes that her dyslexic daughter Malia (Emily Alyn Lind) isn’t getting the help she needs in her badly structured and taught second grade class, she tries to find workarounds, all of which are thwarted by either the school administration, the educational bureaucracy, or the Pennsylvania teachers' union. A newly separated teacher at the Adams school Nona Alberts (Viola Davis) has a slower learning child (Dante Brown) who is also not getting the instruction he needs, and the two mothers eventually band together to move heaven and earth to take over the school using a Fail Safe law on the books which requires signatures of half the school's adult population and faculty along with a complete plan for overhauling the instructional program and approval by the school board, a body which has never seen fit to allow such a takeover before. With such a herculean task before them, the two mothers undertake the challenge to get everything done before the end of the term so the new term in the fall can start with a brand new school. It’s a sober and serious theme that screenwriters Brin Hill and director Daniel Barnz have undertaken, but the writers focus on many of the wrong things that distract from their well-meaning motives. They have both of their women dealing with relationship issues during the movie – Jamie beginning a relationship with effective teacher Michael Perry (Oscar Isaac) while Nona’s marriage to the cold and aloof Charles Alberts (Lance Reddick) is ending – but the inevitable breakup and makeup for Jamie and Michael and the occasional squabbles between Nona and Charles are great distractions from this model school the women are planning, plans that we get only the briefest of informational snatches about. The lazy, indolent teachers who merely baby sit their classes without worrying about teaching anything and the interfering union organizers (played by Holly Hunter and Ned Eisenberg) who fight to keep all teachers on the job whether effective or not seem to be painted in badly realized shades of black and white without analyzing the shades of gray which would give the screenplay more depth and believability. By making the film an us-versus-them/David and Goliath scenario, complexity is sacrificed for simplicity, but since the educational system and its problems are so much more multifarious than are discussed here, the plot merely seems by the numbers, even down to a final school board vote to allow or disallow the proposal. Viola Davis gives the film real stature by taking her rather rudimentary character and infusing her with some passion and inner fire. As is too often the case with her work, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s too-chipper demeanor results in ineffectual forced smiling, sometimes at all the wrong moments. Oscar Isaac gets a chance to show off his musical skills as well as his thespic ones as the dedicated teacher who uses music and movement to get through to today’s hip-hop generation while Holly Hunter plays it by the book as the dedicated union organizer who slowly comes to see the other side's views. Ving Rhames has a very effective cameo as the charismatic principal of a magnet school that Nona and Jamie want their children to attend (and which serves as the model for what they want their new school to be) while Rosie Perez as a fellow teacher and Marianne Jean-Baptiste as the head of the school board who is the first to see the value of the mothers’ plan also make effective appearances. As the two central children in the story, both Emily Alyn Lind and Dante Brown do nicely though late in the film Lind is saddled with an intense confrontation with her mother that no child of her age could pull off (sounding as she does like a teenager rather than as a seven- year old).
Video Quality
4/5 The film’s theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1 is faithfully reproduced in this 1080p transfer using the AVC codec. The film begins with a heavily contrasted, desaturated color look and becomes more colorful and natural looking as the film runs. During the early scenes, black levels get crushed a bit with the heavy contrast, but later scenes have much better balance and more natural skin tones. Sharpness is good to very good throughout. The film has been divided into 28 chapters.
Audio Quality
3.5/5 The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound mix is mostly frontcentric. Sound effects and music by Marcelo Zarvos have an effective stereo spread but only briefly dip into the surround channels. Dialogue has been effectively recorded and has been placed in the center channel. The mix basically gives the LFE channel the night off.
Special Features
3/5 The audio commentary is by director Daniel Barnz. As usual, he’s full of praise for all of his cast and crew, many of whom he mentions by name during the running of the film. He tells production and personal anecdotes and resists describing what we’re looking at, but it’s not the most riveting commentary. His enthusiasm is commendable, however. All of the bonus video features are presented in 1080p. There are six deleted scenes which may be watched individually or in one 8 ¾-minute grouping. “A Tribute to Teachers” finds director Daniel Barnz, producer Mark Johnson, and stars Viola Davis, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Oscar Isaac, Rosie Perez, and Marianne Jean-Baptiste briefly mentioning teachers who had had an impact on their lives. This runs 3 ¾ minutes. “The Importance of Education” is a 5 ¼-minute vignette featuring the same group of cast and crew talking about the importance of education and the need for reform of the system. The theatrical trailer runs 2 ½ minutes. There are promo trailers for Chasing Mavericks and The Last Ride. An enclosed card includes instruction and code number for the Ultraviolet download for the film.
In Conclusion
3/5 (not an average) Sincere performances and a noble if somewhat ineffectual message about the dysfunctional American education system mark Won’t Back Down as a movie whose parts are more notable than its outcome. Fans of the stars will be interested to see their work, but hopefully the subject will be addressed more forcefully and thoughtfully in a future cinematic endeavor. Matt Hough Charlotte, NC
