While she tries to rise to the occasion of her students' need, her own child's educational hurdles at another school weigh heavily on her. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays the single mother of a dyslexic daughter who enlists Nona in what is essentially a parent-teacher takeover of a failing school. The title pretty much captures the spirit of their undertaking, and the film arrives in multiplexes amid controversy, much of it coming from teachers' unions unhappy with how they are depicted and critical of the film's backer (Philip Anschutz's Walden Media).