Review: WAITING FOR "SUPERMAN"

Sometimes movies are not meant to entertain. Sometimes they are meant to open eyes. Such is the case for Waiting For “Superman,” recipient of the Best Documentary award at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

Waiting For “Superman” dedicates itself to the sad state of public education in America, following five young students as they struggle to earn the education they deserve in the face of hardship. Director and narrator Davis Guggenheim takes his audience through the students’ rough streets of Harlem, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles and asks, “do our country’s ongoing social and economical problems stem from our educational system?” With interviews from social activist/educator Geoffrey Canada and former chancellor of D.C. public schools Michelle Rhee fueling the film, Guggenheim is able to present facts and figures that seek to answer this question.

If ever there was a subject to deeply upset me, this is the one. As a student who was fortunate enough to attend decent public schools in decent settings, I never really had to worry about being let down by my teachers the way the kids featured in this documentary do. Throughout most of the film, Guggenheim does well to inform the audience without playing the violin too loudly, a balance that is difficult to find when discussing something so heartbreaking. The statistics he offers, often accompanied by creative animations, are used to keep up momentum while serving as a breather from the depressing interviews given by the students and their parents. However, the balance falls off by the final 30 minutes of the film when the only content invading the screen is shot after shot of (the majority of) the students being denied entry into better schools. This addition plays on the audience’s emotions and detracts from the rest of the documentary, making Guggenheim come off as a less angry, more sympathetic Michael Moore. In the end, I felt like I could have learned more if I hadn’t been so distracted by the film’s final notes.

I wouldn’t recommend rushing out to the theater to catch this documentary, but it is a definite must-rent. The subject may be grave, especially when shown through Guggenheim’s lens, but it is one that must be addressed.

Rating: 4/5