Two determined mothers, a car dealer/bartender (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and a teacher (Viola Davis), look to transform their children's failing inner-city school in Pittsburgh. Facing a powerful and entrenched bureaucracy and corruption from the teachers' union president (Holly Hunter) and the school's principal (Bill Nunn), they risk everything to make a difference in the education and future of their children.[4]
The film is loosely based on the events surrounding the use of the parent trigger law in Sunland-Tujunga, Los Angeles, California in 2010, where several groups of parents attempted to take over several failing public schools. The Parent Trigger law, which was passed in California and other states in 2010, allowed parents to enforce administrative overhaul and overrule administrators in under-performing public schools if petitioned. If successful, petitions allow parents to direct changes such as dismissal of staff and potential conversion of a school to a charter school.[5][6]
Private foundations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce contributed more than $2 million for a publicity campaign for the film. Television ads, bookmarks, websites and private screenings a six-month cross-country tour promoted the film. Promoters scheduled private screenings in states from New York to Georgia and Utah, to promote the movie and its parent trigger message.[11]Michelle Rhee presented the film at separate events near both the Republican and Democratic Party 2012 national conventions several weeks before its theatrical release.[12]
Reception
Box office
The film grossed just $5.3 million at the box office domestically, and, according to Box Office Mojo, had the worst opening-weekend performance of any film to open in more than 2,500 theatres – collecting just $1,035 per screen, until the record was broken by Victor Frankenstein in 2015.[13]
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 35% based on 106 reviews with an average rating of 5.10/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Despite the best efforts of its talented leads, Won't Back Down fails to lend sufficient dramatic heft or sophistication to the hot-button issue of education reform."[14] On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 42% based on reviews from 34 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[15] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "A−" on scale of A to F.[16]
Variety called the film a "heavy-handed inspirational drama" that "grossly oversimplifies the issue at hand." The site continued, "Barnz's disingenuous pot-stirrer plays to audiences' emotions rather than their intelligence, offering meaty roles for Maggie Gyllenhaal as a determined single mom, and Viola Davis as the good egg among a rotten batch of teachers, while reducing everyone else to cardboard characterizations. Absent high-profile champions, femme-centric pic could suffer from low attendance."[17]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "Both the lottery scene and the anti-union material seem to be fictionalized versions of material in the powerful documentary Waiting for Superman which covered similar material with infinitely greater depth."[18]Michael Medved liked the film, giving it three and a half stars (out of four) and calling it "... one of the better films of 2012."[19]
Controversy
Some critics have contended that the film is an ideological vehicle of conservative activist Philip Anschutz and that the film is slanted to promote the parent trigger movement.[20][21] Some critics have contended that the movie shows a watered-down version of what parents are really up against when trying to implement the Parent Trigger law.[22]
