Needs more Cowbell

Rating: Null/10 (19 February 2010)

Glenn Holland, played by Richard Dreyfuss, is a musician and composer who joins the teaching department at the JFK High School. He initially takes the job in order to earn some quick cash, his aim being to eventually take some time off and write his "magnum opus" (a piece of transcendent orchestral music which he hopes will "change the world" and "touch people"), but what started off as a part time job soon becomes a longterm career, as Glenn battles both students and school staff, constantly fighting to get others to realise the importance and beauty of music (and by extension, art).
Eventually Glenn's students become receptive to his message, Glenn using a variety of "innovative" and "out of the box" teaching methods to win them over. The film highlights the erosion of creativity within schools, the power of art, the way these institutions degrade the mind, how school syllabuses are subject to budget cuts and outside job demands, but mostly it says that no life spent in a worthy pursuit is wasted.
Glenn Holland may not have been able to write the "magnum opus" he dreamt of, but he did something equally important. He touched the lives of thousands of students, inspiring and influencing them in countless ways. Glenn's life was a symphony, Glenn's existence a piece of music, and that, the film says, is worth celebrating.
In other words, the film is pure cheese. But if you look past all the sentimentality, the heavy-handed tear jerking, the film has a worthwhile message. It says that teaching art is one thing, but living like an artist and inspiring others to do so is an entirely different thing altogether. It's a love letter to beauty and creativity.
Beyond this you have a nice performance by Richard Dreyfuss in the lead and, ironically, some terrible music throughout. Why do films about music (think "The Pianist") often feature bad music?
7.9/10 – The "teacher genre" is filled with films like this. "Dead Poet's Society, "Coach Carter", "Dangerous Minds", "Good Will Hunting", "Stand and Deliver", "Mona Lisa Smile", "The Substitute", "Freedom Writers", "School of Rock" etc, all follow a similar plot.
Interestingly, whilst most films that seek to show changes to a character over a significant span of time use a relatively young actor and then add makeup to make him look older, "Mr Holland's Opus" does the opposite, choosing a performer whose actual age closely matches the final age of the main character, then using makeup to rejuvenate him for the film's early sequences. Surprisingly, the result works better than the usual approach.