Dangerous Minds

Dangerous Minds (1995) is adapted from LouAnne Johnson's memoir, and the gap between book and film is what it is most criticised for. Johnson is a real person: a former Marine who took a job teaching English at a difficult high school in California. The book's title comes from something her students said to her. The film fits this into a familiar shape: an outsider white teacher reaches minority students nobody else could reach. That shape is now called the white saviour narrative and this is one of its most cited examples. Johnson herself said she was unhappy with some of the changes, and described the real work as less showy and far slower than the film suggests. What the studio added is easy to spot: the leather jacket, the karate lesson, teaching poetry through Bob Dylan lyrics. The film's real legacy is its music. Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise was the best selling single of 1995 and is remembered far better than the film. Michelle Pfeiffer takes the part seriously, and the film works in the scenes where she is allowed to play the character's helplessness. It runs 99 minutes. Good for: nineties drama, school films, and nostalgia. Less good for: the narrative shape is now considered a problem, the resolutions come too easily, and the students are not written as individuals.