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It's not often that a predictable script is turned into a worthwhile movie, but in the case of "School Ties" it has happened.
Brendan Fraser, a brooding Harry Connick Jr. look-alike, stars as a star high school quarterback recruited to a prestigious Catholic prep school, circa 1955. Becuase of the setting "School Ties" has quite a few built in cliches to overcome, but it does it well.
Opening in the hero's home town as he is about to leave for school, the film immediately introduces its time setting with the most recognizable '50s stereotype, rebel guys in their rolled up T-shirts and greasy pompadours. This is played for humor however--every guy in the scene is in this "uniform," and of course, there is the motorcycle gang that like to stir up trouble at the soda shop.
When Fraser arrives at school other stereotypes show up, the nerd, the cruel teacher, and the student pressured by his parents, but are all well acted and enough of an alteration from the stock character that it makes no difference that we've seen them all before.
Fraser is from a Jewish family and decides to keep his religion a secret after coming face to face with anti-semitic classmates and campus personnel in the first few days of school.
In fact, he has a confrontation with the school chaplain that has some not to subtle election year undertones. The chaplain looks disturbingly like George Bush, and refers to the Jews as "you people," a phrase which got Ross Parot in hot water a few months back.
Fraser wins the football games he was recruited for, becomes big man on campus, and meets the girl, played as sensual-but-innocent by Amy Locane. The conflict begins here, as Locane had been the girlfriend of a teammate (Matt Damon).
Damon discovers his rival's secret and uses the bigotry of his fellow students to rally them against Fraser. They accuse him of cheating on an exam in an attempt to get him expelled, and that is when the film gets predictable.
The film making is satisfactory, with creative camera work, clever dialogue, and strong symbolism, like the recurring shots of the hero inside a window, separating him from the world of the school.
The happy ending is inevitable, and it leaves the audience satisfied. In fact, the group at the preview applauded when the credits began to roll. Not many movies invoke that reaction anymore. I think that speaks for itself.
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Yesterday, I watched 'School Ties', a 1990 film by Robert Mandel, starring a young cast of now famous names - Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Cole Hauser, Amy Locane, and others. Set in the 1950s, 'School Ties' addresses the prevalent antisemitism in the USA. But it could as easily be about discrimination anywhere and about the social pressure to 'fit in', the urge to be false to one's ideals and beliefs in order to be appreciated by one's peers.
David Greene (Brendan Fraser) is a Jewish kid from the wrong side of the tracks – Scranton, Pennsylvania – who just happens to excel at American Football. This skill gets him a full scholarship to an exclusive New England Prep School and thereby a one in a million chance to get into Harvard. 'School Ties' is about the year he spends with the privileged kids, his initially successful if misguided attempts to be included in the popular crowd, and then the discrimination that follows when they discover that he is, after all, a Jew.
The issue of antisemitism is shown right at the start when David, who's at the local teen hangout to say goodbye to his friends, gets taunted by a member of a rival gang. He asks David's friend if he doesn't care that it were the Jews that killed Jesus Christ; the friend shrugs and replies, no, never knew the chap. This scene was probably intended to both show that David's friends like him for himself and that antisemitism is something he is accustomed to. But, given the filthy remark David first made regarding the other fellow's sister, I got the feeling that his taunt was more in response to that than over any great concern about religion.
David wins the ensuing fist-fight, but, bloodied and bruised, is late in picking up his father at his mill. His fond and exasperated father ticks him off – getting into a fight today of all days – what kind of an impression will he make at the new school? - does he want to lose this chance of bettering his life? David is angry enough to say he wouldn't care, and his father eases off. They pick up his luggage at the house and then his father and younger siblings see him off on the bus. You can see they are a close-knit family.
On arrival at the school, David is advised by the sports coach to keep his Jewishness to himself. Later, in the dormitory with his new school mates, David understands why - they are all upper-class boys and patently anti-semitic, more because it's the commonly accepted attitude than for any specific, personal reasons. Their casually spoken remarks bother David, but, whereas he had beaten up the boy in his home-town for this very reason, he does nothing here. He realizes that they'll tolerate his not being as rich or as connected as them better than his being a Jew. In his desire to be accepted, he removes and hides his Star of David chain, and later on, guiltily breaking a promise to his father, misses an important Jewish Festival for a Football Match. He is discovered praying afterwards by the School Principal, who, with his polite sarcasm, reveals himself to be another bigot; it is only to shore up the school's sports reputation that he took the unprecedented step of allowing a Jew into the hallowed institute. Something akin to the German Green Cards offered to Indian Software Professionals – you can work here and help boost our economy, but you're not worthy enough to become citizens.
Despite such incidents, David settles down, becomes very popular, and is lulled into thinking that he now 'belongs'. He sticks up for his new friends, especially when one of them has a nervous breakdown. He develops closer ties with Charlie Dillon (Matt Damon), who had previously resented being pushed out of the Football limelight in favor of David, and at the same time gets attracted to Dillon's girlfriend Sally (Amy Locane), a student at a nearby and equally elite girls' school
Charlie Dillon, like most of the boys there, is the latest in a long line of family generations to attend the school and has a lot of familial expectations resting on him – like all his relatives before him, he must be a star football player, a star student, and eventually get into, not just any Ivy League College, but Harvard. Try as he may, however, Dillon is unable to match up or cope. At a school party to celebrate a Football victory – in which David outshone him - his older, more accomplished brother (an ex-student) receives more attention than him and, the more his father tries to tell him that he's talented in his own way, the more inadequate and bitter he feels. His hostility towards David resurfaces later that evening when Sally, who has been seeing David behind his back, declares her preference for him openly. Dillon angrily heads for the bar and here, accidentally, learns from some members of the school management that David is a Jew.
After he discloses this fact to the others, it's a steep fall from favor for David. He can't understand it – he's still the same person after all. He confronts his room-mate Chris (Chris 'O' Donnell), who tries to pretend it isn't so much about being a Jew as about having lied to them. David ought to have told them from the onset that he was a Jew. David counters this by pointing out that Chris hadn't told him about being a Methodist. But it's no use. Even his new girlfriend drops him. She struck me as the worst of the lot – a shallow person who first ditched Dillon for the more charismatic and popular David and then turned her back on him when, as a socially unacceptable Jew, he was no longer a 'trophy boyfriend'. Ostracized on all sides, David now faces harassment as well – nasty remarks in the dining room and then a Nazi banner in his room.
Things come to a head when, during the final exam, Dillon cheats, gets seen by both his room-mate Rip (Randall Batinkoff) and David, neither of whom say anything, and afterwards drops his copy-chit, which the teacher finds. The class is informed of the cheating matter and the guilty party is asked to own up – otherwise, since the school's honor code has been violated, everyone will be failed. David confronts Dillon, who, refusing to own up, tries in vain to first apologize for David's ill-treatment and then to bribe him into silence. At the next students' meeting, just as David is about to rise to denounce him, Dillon jumps up and implicates him instead. Rip says nothing and, except for Chris and two others, David finds, to his anger and indignation, that the students prefer to believe that it was he and not Dillon that cheated - better the Jew after all than 'one of us'.
David is told to go and admit his 'crime' to the Principal. Deeply hurt, David sees no other way than to comply with this obvious ganging up. After a long walk around campus, he goes to the Principal's Office and takes the blame. But, fortunately, Rip has had a change of heart and has already come clean about Dillon. Dillon is summarily expelled and David is asked to stay on. The Principal wants to 'forget' the incident even happened, but David refuses to do so. You used me for football, he says, now I'll use you to get into Harvard.
He walks out and encounters Dillon, leaving in a car. Dillon, unrepentant, says that he'll still get into Harvard and, ten years from now, nobody will remember he cheated – but you, he says, will still remain a Jew. And you, David tells him, will still be a prick, and, with a contemptuous look, walks off. Like Pip in 'Great Expectations', he is now a much wiser man.
Despite some cliches, 'School Ties' is a very good film, well-scripted and well-acted. I found Brendan Fraser more convincing here than in 'George of the Jungle'.
06:37PM TH
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