If ever a made-for-TV’er had “sappy” written all over it, it was supposed to be “The Ron Clark Story” – TNT’s “inspired by a true story” movie starring Matthew Perry this Sunday night.
And it is sappy. And I fell for it anyway.
The movie is the condensed and overwritten version of what led the real Ron Clark to be named “Teacher of the Year” by Disney, to be invited several times to the White House, and to write two best-selling books on education.
Part of the reason for all this recognition is that his students – including his sixth-grade class in Harlem, which had 37 of the lowestscoring students on all standardized New York tests – scored at or above grade level when he was done with them.
In fact, the scores of his kids in Harlem actually beat out the scores of the kids in the gifted classes after one term.
The movie opens with Clark (Perry) starting his first job at a rural school in his hometown in North Carolina. The kids’ dulled senses get awakened by Clark’s unorthodox teaching methods, and they are able to learn and test beyond anyone’s hopes for them.
Driven to do more, and see more, Clark moves to New York – and attempts to get a job in Harlem.
For reasons that have to be more fiction than fact, we are expected to believe that this smart guy comes to the city after the school year has already begun without a job or prospects for one.
Worse, they expect us to buy the story that he shows up at an elementary school in Harlem to apply for a job just as another teacher is getting beaten up on the school steps by a sixthgrade thug.
Guess who happens to be in the right place at the right time?
The school’s principal (Ernie Hudson) reluctantly hires him on the spot.
It’s not until they get past all this nonsense that the movie starts to take off, and Clark begins teaching the worst kids you’d ever want to encounter.
Of course, most of the kids are too good-looking and too put-together by stylists to look very “street,” but they are such good young actors that even this can be overlooked after awhile.
Particularly outstanding is Brandon Smith as Tayshawn (“Without a Trace,” “That’s So Raven” and “The Shield”).
Don’t be surprised if Smith turns out one day to be a huge, huge movie star.
He’s got the kind of presence that young River Phoenix had – the kind that holds the screen.
Gorgeous little Hannah Hodson as Shameika has the biggest part as a troubled girl whose family is a mess. She does a great job, too.
Exaggerated and sappy, sure. And – you got a problem with that?
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“The Ron Clark Story”
[***] (Three stars)
Sunday night at 8 on TNT
