I can’t remember the last time I saw two performances this good, wasted in such a substandard film. Won’t Back Down is a softball feature trying to play hardball as it tackles the issues facing public schools, refuses to leave any stone unturned and sabotages its own story as a result.
Unsure of what he wants to focus on specifically, director and co-writer Daniel Barnz is addressing motivated teachers versus those skating by, upset parents, disadvantaged kids, charter schools with limited space, uncaring unions and private schools that cost too much money. And those are just the surface level issues before you bring in the actual characters.
First we have Jamie Fitzpatrick (Maggie Gyllenhaal). She’s a single mother, working two jobs. Her daughter is dyslexic and they can’t afford private school, they missed out on the charter school lottery and her daughter’s teacher is lazy and uncaring. The system is failing and she is determined to fix it.
Then we have Nona Alberts (Viola Davis), a decent teacher whose personal life is in shambles as she finds herself separated from her husband and the two of them having to do their best with a child that’s a little slow in school, not to mention a third act twist, serving as a sign Barnz is going to throw the kitchen sink at us and hope we’re agile enough to stay alive.
Had these two characters been placed in less capable hands I’m afraid to even wonder how this would have turned out, but this sappy melodramatic mess is actually tolerable only because of the performances turned in by Gyllenhaal and Davis. These two play off each other with such ease you’d believe they’d been friends forever and both can turn on the waterworks if necessary almost convincing you this is actually a good movie. Davis is able to tap into some well of inner emotion that never ceases to amaze me and Gyllenhaal offers up a spark of energy as well as a convincing determination as a concerned mother as they team up to change Adams Elementary in this Pittsburgh-set drama.
Speaking of the Pittsburgh setting, Barnz and his director of photography, Roman Osin, give the Steel City a dark and dreary look that hardly signifies any beacon of hope. The only spark of life in the entire film is seen in Davis and Gyllenhaal as so many of the children and adults in the film are dead behind the eyes and listless in their behavior.
It’s also hard to believe there was ever a notion to call this film Steel Town, which I guess means they were trying to play up a metaphor, or even Learning to Fly, which is equally misguided. Nothing about this film indicates an understanding of how to tell a story. It all merely comes across as a film preaching to the audience about the ills of public schooling and how things can and need to be fixed. If I wanted that I could always turn to the one-sided documentary Waiting for “Superman”, but at some point the story has to become the focal point.
Along with Davis and Gyllenhaal, Oscar Isaac, playing one of the good teachers is decent in that his role is too limited to add much to the film.. For his time on screen he does what he can. Where things go wrong in the acting (or more specifically, character) department begins with Ned Eisenberg as Arthur Gould, the antagonistic head of the teachers union. You’d think this guy would run over children with a bulldozer if it meant preserving the rules as set forth by the union. This guy is fighting an all out war to the point there may as well be a giant neon sign above his head that reads “BAD GUY!”
He’s aided by Holly Hunter playing the cliched bad guy helper that’s going to learn her lesson and is a character you can see right through from the start.
All of this silliness aside, the biggest problem Won’t Back Down faces is its attempt to teach us all the ills of public schooling and how it can be fixed in a matter of just under two hours instead of telling us a story. It’s a film that’s ambitious in its preaching, wanting to turn us all into the converted, but instead ends in such a way that not even an audience convinced by the narrative can say it holds water.
Barnz seems to believe that just because you show people smiling in the end we don’t know the hell that’s just around the corner, even if we accept the concocted conclusion he drummed up.
There are so many things to be frustrated with this film, from its overloading of the message and the awful third act revelation to its worst offense, the squandering of two fantastic performances. If there was ever a bad film I’d suggest you see just to see the performances this would certainly be the most recent. Even then I can’t support the decision to see it in the theater, wait for Netflix and be happy you did.
