A tribute to any teacher who touched your life.

Rating: Null/10 (23 December 2000)

(WARNING: POTENTIAL SPOILERS WITHIN)
This film is a tribute to the teacher/s who changed your life and helped to make you a better person. A few who have savaged the film on this board may have lost sight of this aspect. It involves a music teacher and I can understand disappointment of serious musicians in some regards. That aside, on the balance I found it to be a very fine piece of work.
The basic plot involves a performing musician who reluctantly takes on a job as a high school music teacher. He loathes his job and would much rather be composing and performing music. Over a period of thirty years we see him evolve from a rather self-absorbed overgrown brat into somebody who connects with students on more than just a purely musical level. Later he is made to realize just how many lives he has really touched in those thirty years. Mr. Holland the man is flawed in many respects, especially in his dealings with his family. We all know of creative people who are so "into" one thing that they let other aspects of their lives become a shambles. This is addressed on many levels within the film.
I thought that this was one of Richard Dreyfuss's better performances. Jean Louise Kelly is a very capable singer on the Gershwin tunes and she has grown up to be a very beautiful woman compared to the snotty teen she played in Uncle Buck.
I am thinking that the reason most of the music in the film is either pop gold or "standards" is because most of the general public has heard them before. As a musician myself, I can understand why classical musicians might view this choice with dismay. It was probably done to be more mass-appeal. (Easier to hum "Louie Louie" than "Fingel's Cave" if you're Joe-Sixpack) I agree that the "Opus" that Mr. Holland devoted thirty years of his life to is bland "wallpaper" that sounds like it was lifted from several 8th grade level concert band scores.
In general, you'll love watching this film if you had that one special teacher who touched your life. They may have been a music teacher, a science teacher, or your driver's ed instructor. But if they changed your life for the better, you will always remember them. This one hit home for me on all levels. In this day and age of shoot em up films, it's nice to see somebody go out on a limb for once.