a trite scenario salvaged by its director

Rating: 7/10 (13 November 2010)

Peter Weir took time off from an otherwise noteworthy career to direct this crowd-pleasing melodrama about yet another maverick schoolteacher with unorthodox methods, who in this instance bucks the traditions of his stuffy New England prep school by quoting Walt Whitman and inspiring his students to "seize the day". It's ironic that a script defending freethinking nonconformity should be so predictable, but under Weir's typically intelligent direction the film is (likewise predictably) never less than enjoyable. He pulls all the right strings in the right order, patching the familiar story together with a surplus of lush pictorial glue. Robin Williams downplays his trademark mugging style to actually offer a credible performance, despite being miscast (or at least misrepresented) in the pivotal lead role. Despite a few gratuitous moments of token stand-up comedy shtick (John Wayne and Marlon Brando impersonations, and so forth) it isn't, after all, meant to be a comedy.