[7]
In this film based on a true story, Edward James Olmos (Battlestar Galactica, Blade Runner) stars as Jaime Escalante, a math teacher at a Hispanic high school in L.A. As the school is in danger of losing its funding due to low test scores, Escalante decides to start teaching a math course far more advanced than the school has ever offered. Using unconventional teaching methods, he convinces nearly twenty students to come to school an hour early and stay an hour late, and to give up their Saturday mornings and summers as well. The hard work and dedication pays off when all the students earn unusually high scores on an advanced test for college credit. But when the testing company declares the students must have cheated, they grill the students mercilessly, leading Escalante to question if institutional racism may be the cause.
I’ve seen several sports films and teacher/student films about underdog youth inspired to achieve seemingly unattainable goals. Even the very best of these films — like Hoosiers or Dead Poets Society — struggle to make their maudlin premise feel genuine and sincere. Stand and Deliver achieves that sincerity remarkably well. Co-writer/director Ramón Menéndez largely manages to sidestep all the sentimental flag posts of a story that could have easily fallen into a cloying formula. He doesn’t embellish anything for emotional effect, but nor does he ignore the intrinsically emotional parts of this story — including the specters of poverty and gang violence. The true-life accomplishment of this teacher and his students, told in a fairly matter-of-fact way, is more than enough to sustain this feel-good drama.
The script dabbles with a few tangential subplots that don’t seem to pay off. Lou Diamond Phillips gets the biggest supporting role as a boy caught between wanting to do well academically and fitting in with the ‘too cool for school’ crowd. I’d like to have seen him given a little more screen time. For the most part the film is streamlined to the goals of Escalante — to teach his students, build their confidence, and open their lives up to the opportunities a good education can provide.
The glue that holds this film together is Edward James Olmos, one of the most criminally underutilized actors of the last fifty years. As Escalante, Olmos is witty and unusual, but only to keep his students’ attention, never to show off as an actor. The character feels real and grounded — dare I say ‘authentically inspirational’? — in a way that makes it easy to believe why these teenagers would go above and beyond to learn math from him. It’s a terrific performance that earned an Oscar nomination.
The film ultimately suggests that kids will rise to meet the challenges we present to them. Admittedly, I doubt this sentiment most days. But I want to believe. Either way, it seems the world would benefit tremendously if we could identify and empower more Jaime Escalantes.
Oscar Nomination: Best Actor (Edward James Olmos)