Director: Peter Weir
Starring: Robin Williams,Robert Sean Leonard,Ethan Hawke,Josh Charles
God, guys at pretentious upper class prep schools really have it tough. I mean between getting good grades and making it to yacht club outings, controlling parents and figuring out how to best invest their trust funds, it really is a tough life. Don’t start writing my name on your people to kill lists just yet. I really do love this movie, and that’s why I can be so tough on its slightly ironic premise. I kid because I care.
The story follows the lives of several high school seniors at a picturesque northeastern prep school where they have spent most of their formative years under the strict rules of headmasters and resident proctors. These young men are given lives of privilege, but they face an up hill battle to truly discover themselves in their upper class microcosm. That battle becomes a lot easier when a new teacher, Mr. Keating (Robin Williams), introduces the staunch group of teenagers to a new, passionate, free-thinking style of teaching. Keating nurtures the minds and soul of his students and allows them to soar to new levels in spite of their domineering or non-existent parents rather than because of them.
I’m the first one to dog prep school boys in fraternal organizations, and the carpe diem theme is very cliché and very trite, but it works. And with Robin Williams, you can’t go wrong right? We all saw Bicentennial Man and Patch Adams and What Dreams May Come and Jakob the Liar, so we know the extent of the genius you can get in a Williams picture. (Is my sarcasm too subtle here? Those movies sucked, and the list goes on for days. Sorry if you liked Patch Adams, but shut up, it sucked.)
Okay, okay, so get past Robin Williams’ let’s say, less than deft, eye for good projects and focus on the young actors who dominate in this coming-of-age drama. Honestly, they’re decent…this movie didn’t really boost many careers, but it did allow six or seven guys, including Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard, and that guy from Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead, Josh Charles. (Sorry to get off topic here, but is that guy cool or attractive or good at acting? How did he get to be in movies? If anyone knows give me a holler so I, an equally inept doofus, can follow in his footsteps.) The kids are good, but don’t give them too much credit, they are probably playing themselves in high school: rich, arrogant a**holes. But I like the film, really.
