Okay, so it's predictable and sentimental

Rating: 8/10 (22 February 2007)

Maybe I just needed a break from watching too many Bergman movies, but I liked this sentimental and predictable movie covering thirty years in the life of a high school music teacher. High school being in my distant past, this movie brought back a lot of wistful memories. Even something as simple as remembering how the vacant hallways turn to chaotic madness at the sound of a bell was cause for nostalgia.
The teacher in question, Glenn Holland, gets into the profession in order to have a day job while he works on composing. But the job eats up most of his time and, when he and his wife have a child, his early dreams have little chance of ever being realized. Many people back into life-long jobs and, as Mr. Holland, they grow into their professions and find them rewarding.
Most everybody has memories of good teachers, and Glenn Holland will probably bring them to mind. That in itself makes this movie worth seeing. We don't have all that many movies about teachers, so there is room for one more. In fact we have very few movies that concentrate on any profession in a serious way. In many movies it is hard to figure out just how people are making their livings.
Richard Dreyfus' performance is what raises this movie above the average. Tracing a life over a period of thirty years is always a challenge and that challenge was met here, both in terms of capturing the cultural changes from 1964 to 1995 and in terms of Dreyfus' physical appearance and emotional outlook.
The story is pretty predictable, but, hey, think of all of those sports movies where the home team wins in the final scene. This movie has more substance than most of those movies that seem to be churned out on a weekly basis.
I have to say that the talent in this high school far exceeds anything that I recall in my high school. Holland has his orchestra sounding like a first-rate community orchestra. And the Gershwin review was far from amateurish - enjoyable in its own right. In my high school of over 3,000 students we had nobody to compare with the voice and poise of Jean Kelly.
There are some good scenes, like the one where Dreyfus urges Kelly to take the risk and follow her dreams and go to New York to pursue a singing career. That scene ends with Dreyfus staring into space with a melancholy gaze - is he regretting that he did not take the risk he is encouraging Kelly to take, or is he realizing that he never had a talent comparable to hers? I thought that Holland's having to struggle to teach the black kid how to find the beat was a good touch.
If you can put your critical thinking on hold just a bit, you will enjoy this.