Boasting no major stars and the majority of the cast consisting of children, School Of Rock was the US sleeper hit of autumn 2003. I approached this film with a certain amount of trepidation; in fact I only went to see it because I had free tickets. As much as I liked Jack Black in High Fidelity and his comic-rock group Tenacious D, the prospect of parting with my hard-earned cash to spend 90 minutes watching American drama school kids was not a pleasant one. It came as something as a surprise that School Of Rock turned out to be one of the funniest films I have seen in recent years.
Richard Linklater, director of such slacker films such as Dazed and Confused and Slacker, is back on familiar territory here. Jack Black plays Dewey Finn, a 30-something slacker, so lazy is he that he has no job or even a room of his own – he sleeps in the corner of his best friend Ned’s living room, much to the chagrin of Ned’s domineering girlfriend. He is a frustrated rocker with dreams of rock stardom, or at least winning his local Battle Of The Bands competition. Unfortunately his rock star dreams are dashed when he is evicted from his band for his embarrassing guitar solos and stage diving, and then threatened with eviction from his corner of the living room, he takes advantage of a phone call meant for Ned, offering a substitute teaching job in an exclusive New Jersey private school run by uptight principal Joan Cusack. Initially having no interest in teaching the kids anything other than how they should be 'sticking it to The Man’, Dewey discovers that his young charges are also gifted musicians – could he possibly have a chance of winning Battle of The Bands after all?
Yes, this is an incredibly cheesy premise, and yes the film has a very conventional structure – inspirational teacher arrives to bring joy and knowledge to the students’ lives – we’ve seen this before in Sister Act, Dangerous Minds, Dead Poet’s Society and recently with Mona Lisa Smile – but what makes this film stand out is Mike White’s knowing script and Jack Black’s animated performance. The child actors were not the cloyingly sweet stage school brats I was expecting, they are both talented actors and musicians. But this is definitely Black’s film. The script was written especially for him, and it shows – it is perfectly suited to his energetic physical brand of comedy, his facial and bodily contortions providing many of the laughs. Just when you think the film is going to slip into sentimentality there will be something to shock and surprise you. During a crucial scene when angry parents confront Black, he pleads with them:
“But I’ve touched your kids, and I’m pretty sure they’ve touched me.”
School of Rock is one of those rare movies classed as 'family entertainment’ (two of the most chilling words in the English language, along with 'romantic comedy’) which would genuinely appeal to all ages – slapstick for the kids, prog-rock for the dads and well written well acted comedy for the rest of us.