Seamless scriptwriting, direction and performances, with a rousing, meaningful and convincing ending

Rating: 9/10 (23 February 2019)

A very fine film well worth two hours of your life - you won't be checking your watch for one moment, such is the quality and of the seamless screenplay, direction and performances.
It is reminiscent of the magnificent "If", as far as being a portrayal of an establishment-fodder factory is concerned, and of many classic "schooling" films such as "Blackboard Jungle" (1955) and "From Sir With Love" (1967) in its theme of the heroic committed teacher going the extra miles purely out of conscientiousness.
It is however curious that the scripwriter could not find a better aphorism for independence of mind and non-conconformity - even admittedly in the context of a repressed and repressive institution such as the college portrayed - than "caveat emptor", an ethos associated more closely with self indulgence than with due principled rebellion against stultifying pseudo-conservative tradition. They are strange people, scriptwriters. At least this film got - unusually - a rousing, meaningful and convincing ending.
Like the stellar "One Flew Over a Cockoo's Best", it is remarkable that the producer and director managed to find an enlightened relevant institution willing to overlook the implied slight to itself too, lend itself to the project and supply its grounds (and, incredibly, in OFOTCCN, its staff and patients too) for it.
This is Robin William's finest performance, worthy of renown. As with other films employing teenage actors, most notably "American Graffiti" (1973), it's always interesting to spot the faces who became big. As, in "From Sir to Love" it was Lulu, here it's Ethan Hawke, primarily - scenes with Lara Flynn Boyle apparently having been deleted.