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School of Rock
Review by Jane Robertson (Jane's bio)
Directed by Richard Linklater
Written by Mike White
Jack Black . . . Dewey Finn
Mike White . . . Ned Schneebly
Joan Cusack . . . Rosalie Mullins
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for some rude humor and drug references.
So close to being a great family movie! The kids are appealing, the music is lots of fun, there's no blood or nudity, and the rating is pretty good. What more could you ask?
How about a story that attains its happy ending without the characters having to tell a pack of lies?
If writer Mike White (Shallow Hal, High Fidelity) could have found a different way to rig his plot, this movie could have been a real winner. But everything is built on deception. First, Dewey Finn (Jack Black) gets his substitute-teaching job by pretending to be someone else. Then he organizes the kids into a rock band, impressing on them the importance of not letting their parents know what they're up to. He invites Rosalie (Joan Cusack) out to further his own little scheme, letting her rather touchingly believe it's because he likes her, and he lures the kids into a monstrous pretense in order to qualify for the battle of the bands. Not a pretty demonstration of how to go about winning or, for that matter, what it means to win.
Black poured so much energy into his role that it's really a shame he wasn't working for a better cause. Most of the praise this movie deserves should go to Black (The Good Girl, Orange County) for an enthusiastic, exhilarating performance that never lets down. Playing a rock fanatic with a heart of gold instead of heavy metal, Black reveals real acting ability that his previous pratfalls and wild turns never required or hinted at.
The film's remaining kudos belong to rubber-faced Cusack (Runaway Bride, Grosse Pointe Blank). She shows up so often in brother John's movies that moviegoers might forget she's a capable, stand-alone talent who can melt into a role.
White wasn't just the writer; he shows up here as a performer, as he likes to do in the movies he pens. He plays Dewey's friend Ned, the friend who was supposed to get the sub-teaching gig. His character undergoes a bit of development in the course of being an unwitting pawn in Dewey's plot, but that fact is hardly enough to redirect this movie's misplaced values.
It's tempting to get caught up in the music and Black's performance feat and thus overlook the fact that everything that happens in this movie is based on falsity. Better not give the kids that chance.
Copyright 2003, Jane Robertson. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission.
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About Jane Robertson: Jane contributed to Chicken Soup for the Soul Celebrates Mothers, the Dawkins Project's CeLEBRATIONS: Notes to My Grandfather, and Kimberly Ripley's next Breath Deeply collection, all forthcoming. An editor for the nature magazine Snowy Egret, Jane wrote about a Scottish immigrant in Hope Was Worth the Risk, published in 1995.
E-mail Jane |
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