Dir. Richard Linklater
Wild, raucous, and highly satisfying, School of Rock is Richard Linklater’s entry into “mainstream” filmmaking. The film is at times juvenile, with all the elegant stupidity of an AC/DC song, and at times rambling, much in the manner of a Rush solo, and yet glides by all the flaws on sheer adrenaline.
Jack Black plays Dewey Finn, a man devoted to Led Zep, AC/DC, and the general pantheon of classic RAWK. Finn’s dreams of making it big with his band at a battle-of-the-band competition are dashed when his penchant for over the top gestures (throwing his full frame into stagediving, for one) causes his bandmates to fire him and his housemate Ned (Mike White, who also wrote the screenplay) to cave in to his shrewish girlfriend (Sarah Silverman) and threaten to evict him. Desperate for money, Finn takes a call meant for Ned and answers a request for a substitute teacher - whereupon he discovers that these kids, nerdy as they may be, can really play.
Yes, it’s a cliched script - do I really need to say that Finn awakens the rocker in the kids, the kids awaken the teacher and Finn, and together they make the finals of the competition? - but that’s no knock on White, who wrote the distinctly bleaker The Good Girl. The screenplay is really a vehicle for the shrewd comedic observances of Linklater and the unrestrained rock id of Black. It’s a perfect comedic coupling: Linklater - he of Dazed and Confused and Slacker - knows his rock music inside out and Black knows it outside in, what with his Tenacious D spoof-rock band and his screen-stealing performance in High Fidelity, and together we have a dead-on, and hilarious, portrayal of a subculture.
The only gripe one has, really, is that Sarah Silverman’s vast comic talents are wasted in the role of a scold. But given that School of Rock is one of those rare films to succeed in making full charming use of child actors without leaving the audience feeling manipulated, that’s a minor infraction. By the film’s end (a concert song, naturally), you’re so filled with warmth for Black and the kids that you’re inclined to scour your pockets for a Zippo to wave in the air. All together now - “Rock got no reason / Rock got no rhyme / You better get me to school on time”