Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused (1993) and Before Sunrise (1995) occupy a place in my heart for their warmth and generosity, shambling plots and lightness of touch. Those movies suggested to me that Linklater had something of the early François Truffaut about him: a loose sense of construction, a certain informality and ease with himself and, above all, an unwillingness to condemn or patronise his characters.
School of Rock is Linklater’s first studio outing, a project designed to frame very snugly the talents of lead performer Jack Black. Black hasn’t shone on screen since his debut as the Stalinist sales clerk in John Cusack’s record store in High Fidelity, having been trapped in bad-to-middling fare like Saving Silverman and Shallow Hal. Fans of High Fidelity will fondly recall his plastic-soul version of Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On, one of the movie’s highlights. School of Rock takes that moment as its cue, allowing Black to expand on the musical comedy he developed in his satirical heavy metal band, Tenacious D.
Like Mark Wahlberg in Rock Star (which School of Rock resembles in its opening scenes), Black’s Dewey Finn is so committed to his amateur band that the other members fire him. His screeching, overbearing guitar solos and his tendency to stage-dive clad only in his tighty-whities (no one wants to catch him) are just too much for them.
So, unemployed and unable to pay the rent, he takes a call intended for his substitute-teacher roommate Ned (Mike White) and goes in his stead to teach at a posh private school run by principal Joan Cusack, a Lucille Ball for the new millennium. He thinks the school will be a good place to sleep through his hangovers but, when he overhears his class in a music lesson, he has an idea. Perhaps he can mould these kids into a combo tight enough to win the local battle-of-the-bands contest and kick his old band’s ass in the process.
Ridiculous, contrived and irritating, right? Wrong. The script by Mike White (who wrote Chuck and Buck and The Good Girl) does, indeed, lumber through the motions of setting the plot in train, but once it’s up and running, Black and Linklater hit exactly the right sympathetic groove. The child actors-cum-musical prodigies, all superbly selected, remind me once again of Linklater’s similarity to Truffaut, who always directed children with great skill and tenderness.
It is obvious that the kids can hardly contain themselves in the face of Black’s performance; no one could fake the glee that settles on their faces whenever Black knocks out a paint-peeling Angus Young solo or does one of his Joe Tex-style 360º pirouettes. Dewey is so much like a kid that the connection he makes with his students is profound and really quite moving. The band, in which he finds a place for everyone, right down to roadies, manager and groupies, restores the confidence of the kids. And any movie full of 10-year-olds that has The Stooges, the Velvets and AC/DC on its soundtrack is just fine with me. — Â