Video: Watch The Trailer For The "Parent Trigger" Movie

"After Gyllenhaal’s daughter is punched by a teacher (seriously), the single mom recruits Davis, a mother and educator, to help take back the school. The idealistic women run into obstacles, including a sassy woman who wonders, “What qualifies you to run a school?” and a doubting union rep, played by Holly Hunter." (WP)

Comments

[Paul Bruno]

I feel like "doubting" doesn't capture Hunter's character, here...I think the undertone is "bullying".

[Chandra]

I agree that parents need to be more involved with their children's education, however I wonder why the focus is on the mothers trying to solve the problem - why aren't the fathers highlighted more? (This is a rhetorical question)

[Mary]

It isn't a rhetorical question at all, Chandra. I happened to see the trailer yesterday, at a screening of Crooked Arrows. The theater was packed with kids, families (especially fathers), and youth groups (especially coaches). I don't think they processed the trailer at all the way its manufacturers intended.

I'm not at all worried about the political impact of this film. If you ask the community where I teach to point to the dedicated teachers who really make a difference in their kids' lives, I assure you they'll point to me and not the administration's data-driven teacher leaders. They'll point to Broad-trained administrators when you ask who's responsible for the policy decisions that are blighting and crippling and closing our schools.

In the insider world of lobbying and venture financing, they can put together any package they want, but when they put it out in the world, the truth starts to matter again. Everyday truth has so foreign to the "reform" drive, it may just blindside them. I think they've made a big mistake.

If any energy is raised by this film, it will immediately belong to the other side.

[Robbert]

Short answer to Chandra's rhetorical question (ignoring that rhetorical questions explicitly dont want to be answered): This is a movie, movies may have a secondary goal of inspiring action and so on, but their primary goal is, and always will be (especially at the big studios) to make money. As such the higher ups probably looked to who the audience would be, that is "who is going to pay to see a movie about education reform?" and the probably looked at some data and decided women, generally, are more interested in their childrens education, therefore we will cast the character as a strong female lead which will 1) be identified with by mothers and 2) bring in women, even those who dont care as much about education, who like to see a strong female lead in a male lead dominated medium. Any men (fathers) interested in education reform will see the movie either way, so there is no loss.

Point being, I would take this less as a commentary on who (father or mother) should be pushing for change, and more about which demographics will be drawn to the movie and spend money to see it. Ultimately, this movie definitely has a political message, but if you dont understand it in the fuller context as a "movie" (meaning drawing crowds at the box office, making a profit, hopefully getting awards, and long term drawing dvd/blue ray sales) then your not getting the full understanding of what this is.

So keep it in context. Its a movie.

[Sarah]

Honestly, I don’t see this catching much in the way of media attention. Media is drawn to whatever sells, and this film won’t do well enough to take culture by storm.

Even if it does, it dramatizes a situation that I don’t think needs to be dramatized, but that’s Hollywood for you...

Given that, I wonder if there is a documentary regarding their battle out there anywhere because that would appeal to me.