Plot
In 1994, in Long Beach, California, Erin Gruwell has been hired to teach Freshman English for at-risk students at Woodrow Wilson High School, a formerly prestigious school that has declined since voluntary integration had been enforced and where racial tension has increased since the Los Angeles riots two years before. Erin struggles to form a connection with her students and observes numerous fights between some of them, who are in rival gangs. She attempts to instill respect, but they ignore her and continue to be disruptive in class. The second day of school, much of the student body is involved in a massive brawl when one of Erin's Hispanic students Eva Benitez lets her boyfriend Paco onto the campus with their fellow gang members. Erin goes home upset and distraught as she had witnessed another one of her Hispanic students Alejandro Santiago bring a gun to school.
One night, Eva goes into a convenience store while Paco and two other friends stay in the car. Her classmate and rival Sindy Ngor, who is a Cambodian refugee, her boyfriend, and another friend also enter the store. African American student Grant Rice, frustrated about losing an arcade game, demands a refund from the store owner. The store owner becomes angry with Grant in return and orders him to leave the store. As Grant storms out, Paco (as retaliation for losing a fight against him during the school brawl earlier) attempts to kill him, but misses and accidentally kills Sindy's boyfriend, while Grant flees the scene and is later arrested for the homicide. As a witness, Eva must testify in court; she intends to guard "her own" in her testimony and protect Paco.
The next day at school, Erin examines a racist drawing by her student Tito and utilizes it to teach the class about the Holocaust, which everyone, except for White student Ben Samuels, has no knowledge of. Erin has them play a game called "the line game," and by seeing that they have all been through traumatic experiences, the students start becoming closer to one another. Erin gradually begins to earn their trust and buys composition books for them to use as diaries, in which they write about their experiences of being evicted, being abused, and seeing their loved ones die.
Determined to reform her students, Erin takes on two part-time jobs to pay for more books and activities and spends more time at school, much to the disappointment of her husband, Scott. He tells her he is unhappy because she didn't consult him about the new jobs. A transformation is specifically visible in one student, Marcus. He uses his library books to learn more about the Holocaust.
Erin invites several Jewish Holocaust survivors to talk with her class about their experiences and requires the students to attend a field trip to the Museum of Tolerance. The students start to realize that being different races should not be a reason to prohibit friendships between one another. Meanwhile, her unique training methods are scorned by her colleagues and department chair, Margaret Campbell.
The following school year comes, and Erin teaches her class (now sophomores) again, making it the second year she is their teacher. On the first day, Erin makes her class propose a "Toast for Change," allowing everyone to open up about their struggles and what they wish to change about themselves. Later on, the class makes enough money to have Miep Gies come to the United States and tell her story of her helping Anne Frank, her family, and the Van Pels hide from the Nazis; she then also persuades the students that they are heroes and that they "within their own small ways, [can] turn on a small light in a dark room."
These two events inspire Eva to tell the truth, breaking free of her father's demands of always protecting her own. At Grant's trial, she shocks the courtroom by revealing that Paco actually killed Sindy's boyfriend at the scene; Grant is spared while Paco is convicted, and Sindy later forgives Eva. Afterward, Eva is attacked and threatened by her fellow gang members, but is ultimately spared because of her father and they dissociate from her. She subsequently moves in with her aunt for safety.
Meanwhile, Erin asks her students to write their diaries in book form. She compiles the entries and names it The Freedom Writers Diary. Her husband divorces her since he feels like Erin is devoting too much of her time to her students and not enough time to their marriage. Margaret tells her she cannot teach her kids for their junior year. After being encouraged by her father, a former civil rights activist, Erin fights this decision, eventually convincing the superintendent to permit her to teach her kids during their junior and senior years, much to their elation.
The film ends with a note that Erin successfully prepared numerous high school students to graduate and attend college – for many, the first in their families to do so.
Reception
Freedom Writers has received mostly positive reviews from critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes provides links to 126 reviews, 70% of which are positive. The critical consensus is that "Freedom Writers is a frank, formulaic entry in the inspirational inner-city teacher genre, with an energetic Hilary Swank leading the appealing cast of unknowns." [4] Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 64/100 based on 29 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [5]
Cynthia Fuchs of Common Sense Media gave the film three out of five stars, writing in her review that "the plot is predictable, the actors too old to play high school students, and the pacing too slow. And really, the camera circles around deep-thinking faces a few too many times. But Freedom Writers also argues for listening to teenagers. That in itself makes it a rare and close-to-wonderful thing." [6] The film received a positive rating from Fox Weekly, giving the film a 9 out of 10. [7]
