Won’t Back Down — directed by Danil Barnz. Docudrama. To create a better school for their children two women take on entrenched forces and win through. 121 minutes Color 2012.
★★★
Backed by the great Rosie Perez and the great Holly Hunter, Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal effort womanfully to pump the gas to keep this story aloft. But it’s the way with “inspirational” films, a genre in which the effort it takes the actors to move the Jews to the Holy Land is actually greater than the move of the Jews to the Holy Land. For, boy, do they bend their shoulders to the task. It’s a horribly difficult genre to act, write, and direct, because it forbids everyone to work with anything but the broad strokes of finger paints. Subtlety is not in view. And the poor extras who have to raise their fists in the air and cry, “Down with the emperor!” with the conviction of storm troopers. The tendency of such films is to look patented. But the real problem lies in the shrug of the audience once the film is over, for the characters having given their all to the cause, we, the audience, have no room to give anything. We are as good as not-present before the difficulties and successes which are routine in such a genre. Maggie Gyllenhaal, she-of-the-frantic-locks, gives a cyclonic performance of a character who has no character defects, of course, because all that is in her is The Right, and it is a tribute to her wit and her valor and her inherent recalcitrance that she works the part so well. She never appears righteous. She’s an entrancing personality, with huge impressible eyes and the Gyllenhaal smile carved at the corner of her lips, so it is easy to look upon her with favor. She’s all heartstrings. All give. She is so slight of figure that you imagine she could not push the load she sets in motion, and she is so costumed that you think no one would take her seriously. The actress cast, that is to say, would be in dramatic conflict with the part she is asked to play, and that is the wonder of the outcome of this war, not the war itself, which is based on actual events. Viola Davis’ body, on the other hand, is one of elegance and groundedness. So she’s the anchor to Gyllenhaal’s tossing dinghy. She herself does have a character defect, which is to pressurize her young son to excel as a student past his natural speed. A late exposition scene relieves both of them of this burden, and it’s very well played indeed. Davis’ large eyes convey a beautiful reluctance to go along with the Gyllenhall torrent. And both these actresses are worth seeing as they energize this civics lesson into immediate life, every scene of which is a resuscitation. Which makes it different from Norma Rae, say, as the story takes us to battle with the school bureaucracy, the parents, the teachers, and the teachers union itself, for the battle is not against adult slavery which we can see for ourselves in its effects on rural lives, but against children’s inferior education which we, of course, can witness in children but briefly. So do these two women shine through? Yes. That’s the habit of such stories. Do they shine through to the audience? When Maggie Gyllenhall says to Viola Davis, “Beautiful new nails you’ve got there,” Davis answers, “Cheaper than therapy.” No. There’s too much enamel on the story. A little more depth and a little less polish might have better served.
Archive for the ‘Rosie Perez’ Category
Won’t Back Down
07
Oct