Review of Won't Back Down (2012) by Hoops2448 — 06 Jul 2013

If you thought The Impossible was a shameless film aimed directly at your tear ducts then you should watch Won't Back Down because you ain't seen nothing yet. Won't Back Down follows Jamie Fitzpatrick (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a single mother with a child who is struggling to read and how she joins force with a teacher, Nona Alberts (Viola Davis) to try and turn around their failing school, the failing school both their children attend.

They must do so while going up against a combative bureaucracy trying to hide the schools failing grades under the metaphorical rug. Won't Back Down is manipulative film making at its very worse as the film tries to force you to care about a cause that is led by one of the most unpleasant people.

Jamie is an in your face offensive women who finds this cause and instead of doing what any normal person would do, talk to people about it she rams statistics down their throats making the central story of the film a cause I honestly could not care about.

The worst aspect is that Won't Back Down is based on a true story and a real mother doing the best for her child but this film turns her into a reprehensible attention seeker and the film spends so much time telling the story of this supposedly courageous woman that it almost forgets that there's even a kid driving everything this character is doing.

Despite all that the film also shows Nona's life and as a character Nona is a believable and entertaining woman who is by far the best thing about the film. She is realistic, often caustic but for good reason and she is beautifully portrayed by Viola Davis.

If anything Maggie Gyllenhaal gets a bad deal as she is stuck with an emotionless character with no redeeming features at all, even her concern for her child turns into some kind of search for attention.

A disappointing film about something real and wonderful that's ruined by bad characterization and a truly awful script that makes people out to be ad men as they constantly speak in slogans, speeches and sales pitches, its shameless viewer manipulation that makes me physically sick.