Won't Back Down (PG)
Viola Davis, left, and Maggie Gyllenhaal in Won't Back Down
Time Out rating:
Not yet rated
Time Out says
Fri Sep 28 2012
Feisty bartender Jamie Fitzpatrick (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is fed up with the inner-city elementary school that is failing her dyslexic daughter. So she enlists an equally nonplussed teacher, Nona Alberts (Viola Davis), to help her take back the hellhole institution and remake it into a scholarly paradise. Loosely inspired by California’s recent parent-trigger law cases, this shockingly confused feature chugs along for a while as a reasonably diverting pseudo-inspirational melodrama (Davis even gets to do another of her trademark dripping-snot takes). But the film slowly reveals its true colors, pointing a fanatically accusatory finger at teachers’ unions while using twisted Obama-esque sloganeering about “order” and “hope” to further its simplistically anticollectivist agenda.
Follow Keith Uhlich on Twitter: @keithuhlich
Author: Keith Uhlich
Release details
Rated:
PG
US release:
Fri Sep 28 2012
Duration:
121 mins
Cast and crew
Cast:
Holly Hunter, Viola Davis, Oscar Isaac, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Director:
Daniel Barnz
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