Around the Block
(Australia, 104 min.)
Written and directed by Sarah Spillane
Starring: Christina Ricci, Hunter Page-Lochard
Programme: Discovery (World Premiere)
Christina Ricci delves into full Michelle Pfeiffer mode in Around the Block, aka Australian Dangerous Minds.
Around the Block is a familiar story
of an outsider teacher who wades in to a high school populated with students
from rough urban environments and vows to take a stand against racism, class,
and perceptions of social determinism. The premise, tried and tested, always
makes for a compelling payoff, and Around
the Block is no exception. Writer/director Sarah Spillane, making her
feature film debut, provides a perspective to the story that remains relevant.
Clichés abound in a premise that delivers, but has been done
countless times before. (Mind you, so has Hamlet.)
Take Ricci's monologue, for example, in which she parallels Shakespeare with
Tupac Shakur to show her students the meaning and syntax of the Bard's verse.
The scene is effective; however, it's nearly verbatim of Tom Courtenay’s lesson
in Quartet about the similarities
between opera and hip-hop. It’s unlikely that Spillane had a chance to see Quartet before scripting Around the Block, but the formula of Around the Block adheres to well-tread
terrain aside from using the familiar narrative to realize an urgent story
about deep-rooted racism that still exists today. Spillane also adds a pointless lesbian subplot, which isn't needed
since Dino is already marked as an outsider on several levels. (It also doesn’t
go anywhere.) Ricci gives a compelling performance, though, and has a strong rapport with the young actors as Dino shares her passion for theatre with the class and school.
Spillane lets some of Hamlet's
subtext permeate the film as Dino mentors a troubled student named Liam (Hunter
Page-Lochard, in the film’s standout performance) whom she sees as a kind of
tormented prince. The better scenes of Around
the Block go outside the school and into the streets of the block to explore
the gang violence that makes coming to school such a burden for Liam. Around the Block rises above the formula
of Dangerous Minds clichés in its
strong third act when Liam takes control of the film in a powerful dance ritual
atop a seaside cliff. The scene is the visual equivalent of Hamlet's speech of
“To be it not to be” in both its depth and poetry. Hamlet, like the “Michelle Pfeiffer meets urban school” thing, can
be repeated as often as one wants when it displays a spark of creativity like
the one Spillane does in that one breathtakingly shot sequence.
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Around the Block
screens at the Festival on Friday, Sept. 13 at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema at
9:00 pm.