Great film, few flaws

Rating: 9/10 (24 April 2011)

Robin Williams demonstrates his versatility in this movie. He combines his talents as a comic -- the students appear to laugh spontaneously as he improvises and impersonates -- with a capacity to express seriousness, hurt, and even humility. He not only seems to understand very well his character, an inspirational and empathetic teacher with a counterculture approach in a school where the rest of the staff values discipline and tradition, but also to have a feel for classroom education.
The young actors who play the parts of students complement Williams well. Williams does a convincing job as the unique educator who mentors as well as he teaches in part because his students come across very believably, whether taking risks with girls, trying to overcome shyness, masking fear with stubbornness, or struggling with a parent's disapproval.
Only the situation involving Neil Perry's suicide, because of the script and not the performances, strikes me as unlikely, reminding me that I am watching fiction. Yes, teenagers have occasionally resorted to killing themselves when they feel rejected, unloved, or unsupported by the people most important to them, but Neil Perry's reaction to his father's rigidity still seems too extreme, just as his father's attitude seems too inflexible.
I think I could have remained absorbed in the movie until the very end if Mr. Perry had responded to his son's successful theater debut with a tone of condescension and words such as, "Now... you have had some fun as a dramateur, and that's all well and good, but your mother and I believe that it is time for you to become serious and practical about your future, as you and I have discussed." Then Neil could have possibly reacted with resignation and some tears, or maybe could have avoided the trip home with his parents by hitching a ride and escaping into the city. He didn't have to shoot himself in the head. That act diminished rather than enhanced the believability of this story.