A corny teen melodrama passed off as a masterpiece...

Rating: 3/10 (27 December 2009)

I loved Dead Poets Society. When I was 14...
Professor Keating looked indeed cool and awesome, the poor kids suffocated by the gloomy and dull school, the frustrated ambitions and the unfulfilled dreams and so on.
Which teenager hasn't dreamt about writing immortal poetry, about having a cool unorthodox teacher, about pursuing his (childish) projects?
The problem with Dead Poets Society lies right there... It's not a deep and insightful movie about teacher-pupils relationship, it's not even a pedagogical movie, it's just a long and plodding teen drama, pandering to an audience of angsty teenagers and angsty parents.
Professor Keating is a fairytale teacher who would and should be kicked out of any school on Earth. Public or preppy, it doesn't matter.
For starters, encouraging to rip some pages off a book just because the teacher doesn't agree with the writer's ideas is not "good teaching", let alone "encouraging free-thought".
Some would call it fascism, I'll just call it ignorance and arrogance. Even assuming the theory is ridiculous (and I really wonder if such a "mathematic approach to poetry" really existed), who does Keating think he is to dismiss a published, and supposedly widely accepted, critical system?
But let's just pretend it's totally fair game having an unknown teacher, or a well-known troublemaker if you wish, trashing decades of teaching/critical theories... The awfulness of the movie doesn't end with that.
Professor Keating isn't teaching a thing. He's just messing with the kids' heads, with the poor excuse of "living poetry" and "expressing themselves". How THAT will make the kids pass the class of English Literature is beyond me.
Not to mention the fact the teenagers eat up whatever cheesy "romantic" drivel they get fed by their Mentor, thus leading to tragedy... Suicide, the cheapest way to garner sympathy for a mono-dimensional character. A suicide that has little ground to stand on, and that seems like a random tool to trigger the even cheaper final.
Poor enlightened Keating must leave the school, and his loyal pupils will just salute him with an emphatic yet empty gesture.
Just empty, formulaic and corny like the whole movie.
The whole movie is basically a cheesy teen melodrama, something that could have been written or recycled for a TV Serial like 90210 or the O.C. The only difference is this movie got Robin Williams and a couple of sappy catchphrases.
Actually the catchphrases are the common thread of Dead Poets Society, the most "memorable" and dramatic moments involve a catchphrase... Just like slapstick comedy and teen flicks. Or pro-wrestling...
Dead Poets Society is cheap Hollywood neo-romanticism for teenagers and adults who are teens at heart, or for conformist anti-conformists.
The basic idea could have been developed in a much better and more delicate way, but Hollywood just can't help but going full gas with Manichean stereotypes and situations. Thanks to that, we got a very overrated "masterpiece" filled with cheap sentimentalism and dime-a-dozen "thought-provoking" situations.
Horace is rolling in his cold grave hearing his Carpe Diem being tossed around in such a trivial manner.
Carpe Diem doesn't mean "do whatever stupid thing you want to", but more like "enjoy what you have now, because you don't know what the future holds"
Quite frankly, the suicide goes AGAINST Carpe Diem... The kid kills himself because his (stereotyped) dad doesn't want him to act in a play, so BANG! While the Carpe Diem philosophy would have had the kid to enjoy every second his stint as high school actor, for how long as it would have lasted.
But I'm aware I'm expecting too much from Hollywood...