Film: Shakespeare High

Director: Alex Rotaru
Genre: Documentary
Source: USA (2011)
Rating: Unrated (PG-13ish?)
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: C-

Shakespeare High--about a major high school Shakespeare competition in California--should have been right in my sweet spot. I love documentaries, I was a theater nerd, and I'm a current high school English teacher. Somehow, though, the whole thing fell flat. The filmmakers spent so much time trying to be inspiring that they didn't really pull me in to the drama of the various characters lives (and perhaps we followed a few too many teams, meaning we never got to know any of them well enough). There are two exceptions to that that itself seems to come straight out of a cheesy movie script: the plucky inner city team made up of former gang bangers and tough guys who band together in their scene to find friendship and success. I mean, this should be gold, and it is pretty compelling--so much so that some of the other teens and teachers featured end up coming across as spoiled and a bit cliche. (Though the teacher sure that her team's lack of trophies means there was a conspiracy afoot is herself pretty entertaining, though again in kind of a stereotypical way.) The other story that stood out is that of the African American brothers whose father murdered their mother. The scene they were a part of? Othello's murder of Desdemona. There are some serious Freudian things going on here, and I wish the film had had the guts to pursue them a little more.

That said, perhaps because this was sponsored by Kevin Spacey--an alumnus of this program and someone who obviously has fond memories for it--the film isn't really asking very many interesting questions of or about the competition. It touches on whether scenes performed in the original are of parity with scenes rewritten, turned into song, etc. It basically ignores the judging process and how scenes advance. And it makes a clarion cal for theater saving high school students and creating successful adults in the future (though the three alumni they spotlight are all "celebrity" names--let's see what some other winners have gone on to do!), but it just felt like a student made fan film more than an interesting look at the phenomenon. 

As I said, I was into theater in high school, and so some of what the film wanted to explore echoed with me. It just didn't do it all that well.