Good but problematic

Rating: Null/10 (18 December 2003)

I used to like this film a lot, from the first time I watched it in English class to multiple viewings later on in high school. When I became more literate about film and history, DPS became more of a problematic movie for me to watch.

Possible spoilers ahead!

If the film that is set in the 1950s and deals a lot with poetry, why does it include poems by Herrick, Tennyson and Byron yet omit writings from people like Kerouac, Ginsberg and other post-modern authors? There is too much of an emphasis on the strictness of the times and the adults besides Keating are portrayed solely as authority figures. Neil's suicide seems like a perfunctory way finish the film. Why couldn't he have run away to Hollywood or something similar to that? The build up of his character becomes a let down when he doesn't stand up to his father and takes a coward's way out.
I did enjoy the music and William's performance but I now find the story underdeveloped and the ending overdone like the excessive clapping at the end of Scent of a Woman. 7/10.