Waiting for Superman - Paramount Vantage.
Of all the subjects available to documentary filmmakers today, the decline of public education stands out as one that impacts so many lives. So it's no surprise that director Davis Guggenheim follows up his global warming/Al Gore doc "An Inconvenient Truth" and his recent music doc "It Might Get Loud" with "WAITING FOR SUPERMAN", a look at plummeting public education standards including low scores in reading and arithmetic and fewer teens graduating to college. Guggenheim and co-writer Billy Kimball touch on all the obstacles, school district bureaucracy, teacher apathy and inflexible unions. What makes "WAITING FOR SUPERMAN" fascinating is the way Guggenheim wisely wraps the complex topic around some five young faces and follows their attempts at gaining a quality education. The film enjoyed the perfect mix of critical praise and favorable audience reaction when recently premiering in U.S. Documentary competition at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. That's good news for Paramount, which bought worldwide rights to "WAITING FOR SUPERMAN", and plans a significant release later this year.
Millions of children in the U.S. are being left behind and under- educated and Guggenheim, who discloses himself as a private school parent, examines the problems and reveals the solutions offered by the educators in "WAITING FOR SUPERMAN". The role of unions comes into question. Charter schools appear in a positive light. All the elements are in place: animation, archival clips, face-the-camera interviews from the people in the trenches like Michelle Rhee and the experts who opine on their every move. Amidst the various issues, Guggenheim puts compelling faces behind the stories. Thanks to his subjects, especially the kids, "WAITING FOR SUPERMAN" raises awareness around the crisis in public education but does so in a fascinating manner.
Guggenheim and editors Greg Finton, Jay Cassidy and Kim Roberts artfully mix archival footage between new interviews. As the film unfolds, the five students, Anthony Black, a Washington D.C. fifth- grader, Bianca Hill, a kindergarten student in Harlem, Daisy Esparza, a fifth-grader in East Los Angeles, Francisco Regalado, a Bronx first grader and Emily Jones, a middle class high school student in Silicon Valley, and their families become better known. As a result, "WAITING FOR SUPERMAN" becomes more than a documentary about a serious problem. It grows into a compelling tale about people united by a common cause.
Guggenheim won an Oscar for "An Inconvenient Truth" and went on to direct episodes of the Cable TV western "Deadwood" as well as the 30- minute campaign commercial for then-Presidential candidate Barack Obama. "WAITING FOR SUPERMAN", something of a follow-up to "The First Year", his 1999 doc about new public school teachers, is stronger than Guggenheim's recent doc "It Might Get Loud", where guitarists Jimmy Page and The Edge and Jack White discuss their craft between sets in a Los Angeles warehouse.
Guggenheim also continues to become a stronger documentary filmmaker, which might be the most remarkable thing about the film considering all he has accomplished so far. By the film's closing scenes, as the various students await news of the lotteries to quality schools, Guggenheim convinces us that the emergency facing America's public schools is nearly equal to the crisis of global warming. He convinces us by explaining the issue through the various children and their parents struggling to find the best education possible. Even when faced with a sprawling, complex subject like America's failing public education system, Guggenheim knows how to tell a great story.
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Distributor: Paramount
Cast: Emily Jones, Bianca Hill, Daisy Esparza, Francisco Regalado, Anthony Black, Michelle Rhee and Geoffrey Canada
Director: Davis Guggenheim
Screenwriter: Davis Guggenheim and Billy Kimball
Cinematographer: Erich Roland and Bob Richman
Editor: Greg Finton, Jay Cassidy and Kim Roberts
Animator: Sean Donnelly
Producers: Participant Media
Running Time: 95 min
Rating: TBD
