To Sir, with Love (1967)'s comments

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Siskoid

We've seen a lot of inspirational teacher stories on film, and on the surface of it, To Sir, with Love isn't really inventing anything. In fact, it's sort of amusing that 12 years earlier Sidney Poitier was playing a difficult kid in just such a drama, Blackboard Jungle. Here, he's the teacher who gives up on teaching his graduating recalcitrants about math and geography to concentrate on readying them for the adult world. An interesting tack, and while you'd think it would trade on the obvious race reversal (the inner city kids are white, the inspirational teacher is black, so this is a Black Messiah story, for once), it doesn't push that button. Nor does it wallow in melodrama, avoiding easy marks and opting for realism and sincerity instead. Poitier gives a wonderful performance as a man who finds his vocation, but I also want to highlight Judy Geeson's performance. Her school girl crush could have made her a problematic character, but I instead found her very touching. And of course, there's Lulu's memorable theme tune. Can't forget that. To Sir, with Love is as good an example of this type of film as you're likely to get, a charmer through and through.

4 years 7 months ago