Pressure Cooker
Dir: Mark Becker and Jennifer Grausman
Rating 3.5
BEV Pictures
99 Minutes
As a cinematic subgenre, films about teachers working with throwaway kids-excuse me, "at risk" kids-follow a predictable arc involving contrived conflict, maudlin resolution and bitter tears and, more often than not, turn out to be total groaners. Sometimes, as with Dangerous Minds, the film in which Michelle Pfeiffer uses her cheekbones to disarm teenage tough guys, the results are ridiculous. Sometimes, as with the blatantly offensive 187, wherein Samuel L. Jackson makes like Charles Bronson with some bad seeds, it's an argument for home schooling. It's funny how point of view works. If so many films about so-called troubled teenagers come off as little more than exploitation, it's often because the filmmakers turn them into reductive symbols or archetypes; they're not really interested in them, just their dysfunction and its entertainment value. That is not the case with Pressure Cooker; a story of real people doing their best to rise above their less-than-desirable situation told in a manner that real people will find accessible and truthful-the mark of an engaging documentary.
Outside the door to Room 325 at inner-city Frankford High School in Philadelphia, we hear a voice yell, "Better run you low life punk. Run fast!" It's culinary arts teacher Wilma Stephenson-a tough, middle-aged broad with an emasculating sense of humor who won't let you get away with anything. For 38 years, ambitious and committed students have surrendered to her enlightened despotism to attain her version of the American Dream: You choose a realistic goal, you work hard, you work the system and you get out of Philly. The students are there to master their omelets, crepes and tournée potatoes with the hopes of winning the year-end, one-day scholarship competition where top Philly chefs judge their skills and talents. After rearranging the trophy case with great pride, Ms. Stephenson spells it out for them: last year's class earned over $750,000 in scholarships.
Filmed throughout the entire 2006-7 school year, the film focuses on three driven seniors. Erica has been responsible for her blind sister and longs to go to college in another city where she "won't be the girl with emotional problems...with the crazy mother...with the dad that's never there." She dreams of a day when she will be able to take care of herself. Tyree, the all-state football star, manages to juggle his success on the field with the demands of competitive cooking and is devoted to Ms. Stephenson, who has given him his mantra: "A dream is a reality." Fatoumata came to the United States from Africa only four years ago and has already mastered English. Her storyline is the most emotional and ends up having the most transformative character-arc. A perfectionist, she maintains a 4.0 GPA despite zero support from her father, who counts on her to do all the housework and the cooking. She desperately wants to be independent and feels she has every opportunity in this country: she doesn't have to gather wood, walk 20 miles to get to school and she gets a free school lunch! To her, failure is not an option.
Philly's gritty, urban scenery-from highway overpasses to rundown row houses-interspersed throughout the work serves to underscore the harsh realities these students face. On a drive-by tour of the nearby abandoned factories, the football coach laments that students could count on a factory job after graduation if they didn't make it to college. These days, all they can hope for is a retail job and aspire for a management position some day. Yet at its core, the film retains an overarching sense of hope. With Ms. Stephenson's nurturing, the students hope for achievement, financial independence and a better way of life. She's just as concerned with their future as the sorry state of their eyebrows and prom dates; she's their mentor, mother figure and bully, and nurtures these dreams in ways no one else has even tried.
Filled with excitement and emotion, Pressure Cooker feels like an organic entity that unfolds naturally; it manages to remain nuanced in its probing and rejects cheap sentimentality, at least until the denouement. The outcome is heartwarming but tearfully sentimental, and prompts the question that if sadder results had occurred, would they have been kept in the film? The film's shortcoming lies precisely in the filmmakers' predilection for nuance and their inability, or perhaps reluctance, to show more than just touching character details. They shied away from a riskier approach that would have uncovered the more compelling details of these kids' lives.
As I watched I couldn't help thinking about one of the most powerful movies ever made. Compiled from more than 250 hours of footage shot over five years, Hoop Dreams is an extraordinary documentary about two Chicago teenagers who dream of becoming NBA stars. It's so absorbing, comprehensive and genuinely profound that it transcends the narrow parameters of its genre. The realities of American life are both films' true subject, particularly that debilitated segment of the population that sustains itself with impossible dreams of escape. Certainly, no other movie-documentary or dramatic feature-in recent memory provides such a vivid account of inner city culture. Hoop Dreams isn't about the triumph of the human spirit or any of the white liberal fantasy clichés we so often see onscreen. It's about something far rarer in the movies and of vastly greater significance-it's about real life. If Pressure Cooker's filmmakers had had the balls to really dig deep into their subjects, it could have been so much more.
by Teri Carson