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First printed at www.movingpicturesnetwork.com

Reviewed by Elliot V. Kotek
(from the 2010 Sundance Film Festival)

Directed by: Davis Guggenheim
Written by: Davis Guggenheim and Jeffrey Kimball
Starring: Geoffrey Canada, Anthony, Francisco, Daisy, Bianca Hill, George Reeves, Bill Strickland, Randi Weingarten, Michelle Rhee, Bill Gates

Superman’s motif and meaning has taken residence in the form of tattoos on athletes (Shaquille O’Neal, Dwight Howard) and musicians (Jon Bon Jovi, Joey Fatone), and in lyrics to songs by the Dave Matthews Band, Five for Fighting, Willie Nelson and the Flaming Lips. Rarely, however, has it been mustered up for its magnitude in the name of public education.

Davis Guggenheim delved into climate warming with Al Gore for the invaluable “An Inconvenient Truth” and earned an Oscar for those efforts; he dabbled in Fender guitars for “It Might Get Loud” and found out what it was like to travel the festival circuit with a real rock star in Jimmy Page. In “Waiting for Superman,” Guggenheim has returned to his role as advocate by subjecting the schooling system of the U.S. to eloquent scrutiny.

Through his dissection of the state of public education by breaking them into elemental units , kids, teachers, administrators, unions, schools, states and the nation at large , Guggenheim is somehow able to present the complex issues at play with relevant simplicity and global context. Are our kids failing school? Or are our schools failing our kids? And how much injustice is being done against kids in the name of harmony among adults?

In 102 minutes, Guggenheim enables us to isolate the institutionalized exigencies inherent in the system, and to identify the heroes and pioneers attempting to become the purveyors of an education that will ready the next generation for the onslaught of opportunities.

While the situational disparity between state of the teachers’ unions and the health of the system they are supposed to serve will no doubt stir heated debate in the months that follow the movie’s release (one could even argue that Randi Weingarten and the two major unions fulfill their roles as villains), the heart of the film belongs to the kids , Anthony, Bianca, Daisy and Francisco. Sampled from across the country, these small individuals represent the struggle for all of those without the means to break the molds that bind them in a vicious circle of “academic sinkholes,” “drop-out factories,” “turkey trots” and “lemon dances.” The film’s dramatic depiction that those who strive to make their children’s lives better must rely on the luck of lottery systems for acceptance into KIPP, Green Dot charter and other alternative schools, is both harrowing and heartbreaking.

Picked up for distribution by Paramount Vantage (Guggenheim’s distribution partner on “An Inconvenient Truth”), “Superman” seems set to receive the support it needs to start schooling audiences nationwide. Just as Louie Psihoyos’ “The Cove” began its Oscar run humbly at Sundance in 2009, Guggenheim’s tour de force demands similar grades.

Although the title of the film rests in significance with educator Geoffrey Canada’s childhood dreams that someone akin to his comic book hero would rescue him and others from his demanding environment, “Waiting for Superman” also recalls lyrics written by The Flaming Lips (and covered by Coldplay, Iron & Wine and others) that are also apropos to the film’s core message:

Tell everybody
Waiting for Superman
That they should try to
Hold on the best they can
He hasn’t dropped them, forgot them or anything
It’s just too heavy for Superman to lift

Photo courtesy of Sundance Film Festival

When he passed away in 2002, Davis Guggenheim’s father, Charles, held the record for the most documentary Oscar nominations, having won three Best Documentary, Short Subjects statuettes. His 1984 feature doc, “High Schools,” for which he was nominated, scrutinized the status of America’s public high schools in the 1980s.

Video interview with ”Waiting for Superman” filmmaker David Guggenheim.