Won't You Come Home, George Bailey?

Rating: Null/10 (1 December 2002)

Spoilers. What saves this movie is Richard Dreyfus' performance and the delicious tightening of the screws as the sentimentality increases. The plot isn't novel. We've seen "It's a Wonderful Life" a thousand times. Then there are the several versions of "Good-bye, Mister Chips." Surely other versions that I can't remember of the guy/woman who finds himself/herself in a job that seems unrewarding, then, after a lifetime of attempted escapes, seems finally rejected by the system he's resented, like a ship deserting a sinking rat. But no! The man/woman has had more of a benificent influence than he/she has thought. And this despite the tribulations of deaf children (in this case), alcoholism, existential despair, mismanaged marriages, mental illness, or crippling dandruff. At the end all of his friends and supporters gather in a final handkerchief-drenching salute.
It's a little difficult to imagine Richard Dreyfus exercising self restraint but he does it here, and very effectively. The plot developments are almost entirely predictable. The student who can't play the clarinet winds up governor. The one who can't play the drums is lost in Vietnam. (The film covers 30 years.) The gorgeous young senior who falls in love with him becomes a stage success. Through it all, Dreyfus plays, not Dreyfus, but Mr. Holland. He's quite good. And he gets ample support from people like Bill Macy and Olympia Dukakis.
A secondary plot has him in a kind of love/hate relationship with his hearing-challenged son, Cole. What a disappointment for a music teacher and composer. How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a child who's deaf. (The script writers went overboard on irony here.) When John Lennnon is murdered, Dreyfus has a big silent fight with Cole, who protests that he too feels Lennon's loss, although his old man gives him no credit for it. This is resolved when Dreyfus realizes how wrong he's been, and at a tribute for the murdered ex-Beatle sings Lennon's simple, touching song, "Beautiful Boy." He alters the last line of the lyric, so that it becomes, "Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful -- Cole." Not being morons, the audience could have done without that change.
But no matter. It's an above-average uplifting story. Every time the bell rings an angel gets his wings, you know. The only problem I have is that, what lingers most tellingly, is not the one and only performance of Mr. Holland's composition, but his reply to a friend who offers to help however he can, now that Mr. Holland is fired for budgetary reasons, perhaps a letter of reference. Dreyfus says, "I'm sixty years old. Who are you going to write a letter of reference to -- the morgue?" I hope he enjoyed conducting his opus.