While I don’t feel the need to do a review of Detachment, the new Tony Kaye film starring Adrien Brody, since Brett already wrote up a fantastic review, I was invited to a special screening of the film and thought I would share some thoughts on it.
In his review Brett calls the film “a realist’s version of Dangerous Minds,” (although he points out some obvious incongruities that make the film less-than-realistic), and it definitely has a lot in common with that popular 1990s movie. And while I agree with Brett — the film that’s clearly going for a more “realistic” portrayal of a failing school system — I have to go a bit further and say that the film ultimately suffers from the same flaws as other movies about teachers despite its attempt at realism.
I spent four years as a teacher, and one of the aspects of the career that I found so rewarding is the knowledge that I was making a connection with my students and an impact on their lives. Yes, there were the occasional headache-inducing students — though I admit I never came across the nastiness and hopelessness of the students in Detachment — but overall my experiences with the students were very positive. Generally, however, substitute teachers don’t have this impact. As a result, I have a lot of sympathy for those who dwell in substitute teaching purgatory. Students treat subs like emasculated babysitters since they’re aware that a sub has even less jurisdiction than a hall monitor. I know this because I certainly treated substitute teachers like second-class citizens and I wasn’t one of the “bad kids.”
As a result, I always saw teaching as the pinnacle of a “people person” job — that is, if you aren’t good with connecting with people, you’re not going to be an effective teacher. Brody’s Mr. Barthes, however, is obviously emotionally damaged from his mother’s suicide and as a result finds it difficult to make a connection with anybody, so it seems completely out-of-character that he would actually make some sort of difference in the lives of his students.
There’s a very realistic scene with Christina Hendricks‘ character tutoring a student one-on-one which shows how much she cares for her students (well, if I had a teacher who looked like Christina Hendricks I would stay after for tutoring every day, but that’s beside the point). But there’s no counterpart scene with Mr. Barthes, who seems far more interested in saving the life of the young prostitute, Meredith, than trying to teach his students. Yet some of the students become engaged, anyway. These were the parts of the film that I found least realistic, especially when the most antagonistic student at the beginning of the film suddenly sings Mr. Barthes’ praises on his last day. Let’s be honest here, in one month the seemingly indifferent Mr. Barthes wouldn’t be able to turn an entire classroom of troubled teenagers into scholars who care about their work, especially since he doesn’t seem very engaged in his j
ob (he’s never shown thinking about his students or doing any school-related tasks outside of the classroom, which is unlike any teacher I ever met — hours are spent between the schooldays planning lessons and grading, especially for English teachers).
But this is an all-too-common myth of the teacher in film. Movies like Dangerous Minds, Stand and Deliver, and Dead Poets Society celebrate the ideal teacher who can turn a classroom around with a few out-of-the-box ideas and THE POWER OF CARING. I’m not saying that’s impossible — I’m no miracle worker and I noticed that I was able to significantly help students in my classes — but for someone like Mr. Barthes, who doesn’t appear to even care much about his job and spends most of his evenings reenacting scenes from Taxi Driver, it’s a bit farfetched. It is difficult for a film to utilize an unrealistic character in the lead if it is attempting to take a realistic look at an issue — to me, that’s like making a Superman film about the problems of law enforcement.
My favorite aspect is the opening of the film, which features quotes from individuals talking about how they ended up becoming teachers — and all for the wrong reasons. Frankly one of the most awful parts of being a teacher is having colleagues who care very little about their jobs and run their classrooms like they are overpaid babysitters, which when they act that way, they essentially are. But a floating sub like Mr. Barthes, who is presented as a contrast to those types of teachers, is anything but. He’s just as apathetic, but in a different way. In fact, I was far more engaged by the characters played by James Caan, Lucy Liu, and Marcia Gay Harden, who are truly putting in the effort to help their students, yet somehow Mr. Barthes has a more profound impact on his students than any of them. Caan, in particular, is genius in one of his best roles in years, and his character has the best scenes in the film — too bad we get very little of him.
Don’t get my criticism wrong — I liked the film, but I actually saw it as equal parts Taxi Driver and Dangerous Minds. The combination of the two, however, just didn’t seem to fit. I would’ve rather have watched two different films, one about Brody’s character and another about the school. Ultimately I saw Detachment as the rare film that the parts were stronger than the sum of its parts.
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