Won't Back Down is the Greatest Story Ever Told

As I am writing this blog, Won't Back Down has just been released to movie theaters across the country.   It is on its way to setting huge box office records, but if you care about children or education you must go see this film immediately and preferably multiple times.  While, I haven't seen this movie myself yet, I can guarantee you that this is a powerful and uplifting story that will forever change the way that movies are made as producers are allowed to move away from the constraints of dramatic storytelling in favor of lecture.

If Waiting for Superman was our Birth of an Education Nation, than surely this movie by the same company is our Triumph of the Will and Melinda Gates Foundation.  The acting is superb as Maggie Gylenhal and Viola Davis tell the story of a mom with a child who is Dyslexic and falling through the cracks of our public school system.  Fortunately, just as in real life charter schools are there to take these students and teach them.  At times in the trailer, Maggie Gyllenhaal was so powerful, I felt like I was watching Meredith Baxter-Birney or Valerie Bertinelli in a Lifetime movie.

Several union bosses tie Maggie Gyllenhaal's character to the train tracks.

 

I urge you, if you care about children, to go see this movie.  It sheds light on the very real problem today of hedge fund managers and other wealthy philanthropists to get access to public schools.   I can't wait to see this movie and to add it to my DVD collection.  Currently, when I want an uplifting charter school story, I am reduced to watching Annie and pretending Daddy Warbucks is UNO's Juan Rangel.  I give Won't Back Down 4 very solid stars and I would give it a fifth, if my rating scale went that high.