FILM REVIEW: "Radical" is well-intentioned, but fails to land on its feet
Christopher Zalla’s Radical tells the true story of Sergio Juárez Correa’s 2011 cohort of Year 6s at (school name) in the impoverished region of [Blank]. From the get-go, we follow the Principal, Sergio, and a select few students through their respective morning routines in a diverse range of living conditions. Despite an array of vastly different backgrounds, every character commutes through the same ravaged streets, the remnants of an ongoing cartel war laying covered in sheets from the night before. The school, amidst it all, is a bastion of hope for the community’s adults and kids, however slim.
It is here the film touches on its greatest strength, the place of education as a forum and canvas for fundamental change. Instead, it antagonises the system and teachers who aren’t Sergio. Seeing as the film is based on real life, the myopic and almost deific lens applied to the protagonist feels like an initial misstep with consequently larger knock-on effects: In short, the sacrifices, triumphs and conflicts dealt with by the students (played by non-actors) seem to become enmeshed in this tribute to an individual, rather than the enormous potential of children if only given a slight infrastructural safety net. The film’s heart is in the right place, but it consistently and unintentionally restricts hope to something only Sergio can inspire. Even though the kids make enormous independent leaps, they only seem to work when Sergio is involved.
While the aim is clear, it seems to minimise the agency of his pupils in favour of an almost mystic depiction of the teacher; yet his method isn’t revolutionary! The film acknowledges this too: “You’re basing your teaching style off of a YouTube video?” Surprise, surprise, if you treat kids like innocent, valued future-citizens, and mitigate government embezzlement, they flourish of their own accord. This movie makes the most sense when it orients itself around what happens when downtrodden children are finally, finally given a chance to prove themselves. Instead, it mythologises a man who simply applies contemporary teaching with the expected results. Sure, this application stands above his colleagues (who are also a little unfairly condemned for doing what they can to receive monetary compensation), but these people are not the enemy, although that becomes their role in the reductive narrative structure.
The performances are okay, but the script gives everybody very little to work with. The ill-suited “feel-good” atmosphere perhaps prevents the story from treating the very real darkness present in the film’s world with any serious gravity, even when there are corpses on screen. And yet, though the audience is continually cued as to when to feel those good moments, we are never told when to lament the bad, and it comes off as slightly indifferent.
Visuals seem incongruent even in establishing shots and B-Roll. There are numerous continuity errors, the sound provides very little contextual grounding or memorable feeling, and the camera work isn’t particularly inspired. The film is at its best when it steps back to let the characters (mainly the students) exist in an environment instead of trying to focus everything on this slightly strange prioritisation of Sergio’s heroism.
If you are looking for a movie to move you, Radical is not that. It is a flattering tribute to a teacher who would expectedly also prefer it to have been a tribute to an inspiring generation of young Mexican students.
2 out of 5 stars
