Around the Block

To Sir, With Love. Dangerous Minds. Stand and Deliver. Blackboard Jungle. Freedom Writers. If you’ve seen any of these films or the dozens of others like them than you know what to expect from Around the Block. The premise of an optimistic teacher taking up the challenge of inspiring at risk students is nothing new. The idea goes as far back as the silent era. It’s even inspired parody films like 1996’s High School High. To say that this concept isn’t exactly fresh is an understatement. In order for a film to successfully tackle this subject anymore it needs to find something new to say about the subject. It’s not enough to simply set it during an actual tragedy from recent history such as the Redfern riots in 2004’s Sydney Australia. What can Around the Block give a modern audience that the myriad of other similar films have not?

The set-up for this familiar story is a drama school teacher, Dino Chalmers (Christina Ricci), who has recently moved back to Sydney with her boyfriend. She has taken a job at a bankrupt school facing closure at the end of the school year. When informed of the types of students she will be working with she decides to get the at risk students involved via Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a play that is near and dear to her heart. One of her students, Liam (Hunter Page-Lochard), initially shows up for the class only because of his interest in fellow student Williemai (Madeleine Madden), an attractive young woman from the better part of town. As Liam gets further into Hamlet he finds parallels between the play and his own life, particularly when his brother pressures him into getting involved in the revenge killing of a man they believe is responsible for their father’s incarceration for a robbery gone bad. 

Meanwhile, Dino is facing her own struggles as she is forced to confront the casual racism coming from her boyfriend and his peers. This, and pressure from the other teachers that she is wasting her time on students that are considered a lost cause, leave her with plenty of doubts. Ultimately, she too will have to figure out what is best for her in her own life. 

Inspiring teachers unwilling to give up on their students is an easy genre to get right. All it takes is compelling leads, dire situations, and an inspirational monologue or two. Throw in some harsh eye-opening glimpses at the realities some of the youth of today are facing and it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. What makes Around the Block a more interesting film than just that cookie-cutter plot is the parallels it insists on painting between Liam and Hamlet. Here is a protagonist compelled to get involved in the killing of a man who allegedly put his father in prison. Liam, like Hamlet, becomes a martyr to the cause, not in the sense of giving up his life but in giving up his ideals, possibly even his future, to get involved in something he doesn’t really want to do. There’s a scene late in the film when he visits his father in prison and, while embracing him, cries out that he doesn’t want to grow up to be like him. Hunter sells the emotion and the dilemma his character is in, knowing he is about to join his brother in taking a life. 

Christina Ricci is an odd choice for Dino. At first she comes off as a poor fit for the role, uncertain and nervous portraying a teacher with a strong conviction towards helping these students. As it plays out, though, it’s fascinating watching her. What originally looked like the actress not jiving with the character actually is Ricci choosing to portray Dino as a woman riddled with self doubt bubbling just below the surface. It’s an interesting choice by Ricci and humanizes her. The only negative with this character is entirely the script’s problem. Midway through the film, when Dino leaves her boyfriend, she goes to a lesbian bar and ends up spending the night with Hannah (Ruby Rose in her big screen debut). The scene comes out of left fiend and ends just as abruptly. It feels like filler, added at the last minute and tied in no way to the rest of the narrative. It adds nothing to the story, either. Again, this is a script problem and not with Ricci herself. Even later there is another scene where Dino approaches a former girlfriend in an attempt to reconcile after years of separation. Neither of these scenes goes anywhere and the plot point is dropped immediately afterwards. Both scenes could have been edited out and the film would be all the better for it. 

Setting the film in Sydney during the Redfern riots gives the story an air of truthfulness that it otherwise wouldn’t have. The real life violence was less than a decade in the past and, for some people, still a fresh wound. This film could have mined the tragedy for drama, depicting the riots in grizzly detail, spelling out the details of why it was happening and the horrors of the event itself. Instead, it’s used sparingly, a background event to divert the police’s attention away from the murder Liam and his brother are going to be involved in. We see the after effects of the riots but little of the actual thing. Afterwards, when the police catch up to the brother, those moments of violence and tragedy are juxtaposed against scenes of the school play, Hamlet, as Liam is performing in front of an audience in the lead, the police there ready to take him away once the show is over.

There’s a lot to admire about Around the Block. There’s a lot to be frustrated about it, too. It’s uneven for one. Hunter Page-Lochard delivers an eye-opening performance as Liam, stealing the show from top billed Christina Ricci. There’s a lot of nuance to his performance and it’s easily the best thing about this film. Ricci is good here, too, but her character is shunted to the side too often and when the film does focus on her many of those scenes feel too on the nose or, in case of the one-night-stand, shoehorned in for no apparent reason. Her acting is good but the script and directing let her character down. The juxtaposition between real events and Hamlet make for an interesting dichotomy. Liam’s drama is well portrayed but, without a strongly written character for Dino it becomes uneven overall. This makes the film good when it could have been, when it needed to be, powerful.

Release Date: April 26, 2014

Running Time: 104 Minutes

Rated R

Starring: Christina Ricci, Hunter Page-Lochard

Directed By: Sarah Spillane