Peter Bradshaw 

Won’t Back Down – review

A mom and teacher plan to take over a failing school, with cliched results, writes Peter Bradshaw
  
  

Won't Back Down film still
Well meant … Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal Photograph: Kerry Hayes/film company handout

Here's a movie that is "inspired" by true events, about a persistent teacher and a mom, Nona and Jamie, played by Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal, who launch a parent-power takeover of their kids' failing innercity school in Pittsburgh, with a view to turning it around. The film could theoretically shed light on the "free school" debate in this country, but it is self-consciously acted, with a cliched screenplay and a naive sense that if they succeed, everyone's troubles will all be over. It is well meant, undoubtedly about something that matters, and it bends over backwards not to trash the teachers' unions gratuitously, but amid the attempts at gritty reality, I found the happy-ending imperative unconvincing.

 

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