Review of Mr. Holland's Opus (1995) by Mike S — 19 May 2008

Richard Dreyfuss gives an excellent performance as a high school music teacher who took up teaching to make some money while waiting to become famous on Broadway as a composer. Along the way, he touches innumerable lives without realizing it.

This is basically an ode to teachers and does a good job of showing the influence a good teacher can have on his students. In an interesting spin on the genre, it covers an entire 30-year career, using montages of major events to move us from decade to decade.

One flaw with the script is that it has Dreyfuss's character learning a little too easily from his mistakes, but his performance makes it believable.