Analysis of Mr. Holland’s Opus

Mr. Holland’s Opus
Name of Student
Institution Affiliation
Abstract
An aspiring music composer, Mr. Holland, becomes a high school teacher at John F. Kennedy High School in the US. Initially, he meets students who lack interest in music but later helps them discover their strengths and hidden talents in music. Finally, he dedicates all his energy to retain music and art courses since they are at risk of elimination from the syllabus by the school’s administration. Ultimately, Mr. Holland positively impacts the community for over thirty years as a teacher.
Mr. Holland’s Opus
Directed by Stephen Herek, Mr. Holland’s Opus spawns a riveting experience throughout the movie. Richard Dreyfuss plays Mr. Glenn Holland while displaying a warm and stellar emotional performance. He controls the film’s light moments while at the same time conveying the movie’s Capraesque instances, offering the audience a “good cry.” Although some critics would highlight Patrick Sheane Duncan’s screenplay as directionless without a cohesive narrative, Herek maintains the storyline’s tempo, thus keeping the audience glued to their seats. Mr. Holland endures mixed experiences at home and school. At home, he neglects his wife (Iris Holland played by Glenne Headley) and his teenage deaf son (Coltrane Gershwin Holland, played by Joseph Anderson). At the same time, he grapples with getting along with the staff and his students but corrects the mistakes later.
Mr. Holland’s Opus banks on a sequence of tear-jerking circumstances, but they almost habitually invoke a compelling emotional pull. The film begins as a story of a youthful idealist, forced to be a high school teacher. As a hopeful composer who has been eking a living playing at bar Mitzvahs and weddings, Mr. Holland becomes a teacher with notable reluctance, as manifested in a conversation with his wife. “I made 32$ today,” says Iris. In a rejoinder, Holland replies, “big deal, I made 32 kids sleep with their eyes open” (Herek et al., 2017). However, it is not long before he rises to the occasion by proving his invaluable, centered, and profound understated performance. He draws empathy from the audience by overcoming Michael Kamen’s abysmal score about becoming a teacher and paints a beautiful story of how commitment can lead to excellence. Soon, Glenn Holland popularizes music appreciation class blended with shrewd dance-along use of The Kingsmen’s, Louie, Louie. He motivates students with Disney animations ideals and battles toxic colleagues agitated by his perceived disrespectful and radical teaching ideas. In the film, Principal Jacobs played by Olympia Dukakis, accuses Mr. Holland of deviating from the syllabus though with a touch of amusement, saying, “Mr. Holland, it has come to my attention that you are teaching the students rock and roll!” (Herek et al., 2017). In the script, Holland gives a witty reply when accused of inciting an uprising among students stating, “Stravinsky was the music of the Russian Revolution if you really want to talk about a breakdown in discipline” (Herek et al., 2017).
The film unravels episodically, sequentially portraying Glenn Ho...