On their first day sixth grade, the students of Jose Urbina Lopez Elementary School in the Mexican border city of Matamoros find their new teacher rolling on the floor surrounded by overturned desks.
They鈥檙e not desks, he exclaims. They鈥檙e lifeboats.
So begins Christopher Zalla鈥檚 鈥凌补诲颈肠补濒,鈥� an inspirational based-on-a-true-story drama about an unconventional teacher named Sergio Juarez Correa (Eugenio Derbez). His day-one lesson is ultimately about buoyancy. But the metaphor isn鈥檛 hard to grasp. In Lopez鈥檚 classroom, education is a life raft.
which opens in theaters Friday, is a conventional but stirring entry in the crowded canon of uplifting educator tales like 鈥淪tand and Deliver,鈥� 鈥淟ean on Me鈥� and 鈥淭he Class.鈥�
鈥凌补诲颈肠补濒,鈥� though, isn鈥檛 set at an inner-city school in Los Angeles, New Jersey or Paris, like those films are. Matamoros, along the Rio Grande and across from Brownsville, Texas, is considered a lawless place, known for extreme violence and migrant encampments. 鈥淩adical鈥� is also set in 2011, among the bloodiest years of Mexico鈥檚 drug war.
That makes for an especially unlikely backdrop for classroom revival. The school, itself, is known as 鈥淭he School of Punishment.鈥� For safety, its gates are locked during the school hours.
Sergio鈥檚 self-empowering method is to allow kids to follow their curiosity and find answers for themselves. They鈥檙e skeptical at first but soon are engaged and excited by their freedom to lead their own learning. More than once, Sergio says the students don鈥檛 even really need him.
There are plenty of familiar beats as the school year moves along. Sergio鈥檚 ways draw the ire of other teachers. Parents are distrustful, wondering if he鈥檚 giving kids facing a harsh future false hope. But while 鈥凌补诲颈肠补濒,鈥� an audience winner at the Sundance Film Festival, is formulaic in its approach, it gets enough out of it likable cast to earn at least a passing grade.
Derbez, the Mexican actor and comedian, already made an impression in the classroom as the encouraging music teacher of Here, he takes center stage, playing Sergio with a winning sincerity and full-bodied resistance to the rules.
Three of the students are brought into focus: Paloma (Jennifer Trejo), a math whiz with astronaut dreams who lives beside the landfill her father works at; Lupe (Mia Fernanda Solis), a budding philosopher whose pregnant mother expects her to help with childcare; and Nico (Danilo Guardiola), a plucky kid who鈥檚 being trained by a local dealer as a drug courier.
Their stories are never quite at the center of 鈥凌补诲颈肠补濒,鈥� which sticks closest to its star teacher. But each young actor is natural, particularly Trejo. Her real-life character, Paloma Noyola Bueno, was the central figure in a Wired article that 鈥淩adical鈥� is partially derived from.
But the best relationship captured in 鈥淩adical鈥� is the one between Sergio and the school鈥檚 cautious, less energetic principal Chucho (a wonderful Daniel Haddad). He at first seems like an impediment to Sergio, warning him not to 鈥渒ick the hornet鈥檚 nest.鈥� But before long, he鈥檚 a co-conspirator, willing to 鈥� in a further experiment on buoyancy 鈥� cannonball into a cold tub. Together, Derbez and Haddad help make 鈥淩adical鈥� float, too.
鈥凌补诲颈肠补濒,鈥� a TelevisaUnivision release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for some strong violent content, thematic material and strong language. In Spanish with subtitles. Running time: 127 minutes. Three stars out of four.
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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
