I don't know if Richard Dreyfuss has grown up on-screen, but he certainly has aged on-screen. Once upon a time, he was young and brash. The parts he played in "American Graffiti" and "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" were somewhat gawkily naive in their cockiness. Rather quickly he moved on to playing a father in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," (and "Jaws"? I don't remember). And then to world-weary, set-upon adults in "Tin Men" and "What About Bob?", a banana-republic dictators ("Moon over Parador") and a U.S. president. He played Henry Fonda's role in the remake of "Fail Safe" and that of Spencer Tracy in Spielberg's tearjerker "Always," in which he even managed to be a convincing romantic lead. He can simulate gravitas, but can still reveal vulnerabilities, too. (I think that it was the vulnerability that won him an Academy Award in 1978 for "The Good-bye Girl," but I don't remember that movie very well.)

The 1995 movie "Mr. Holland's Opus" provides a recapitulation within one (long!) movie of the aging that had been recorded in the two decades preceding it in a series of movie. "Mr. Holland's Opus" shows a thirty-year career of a struggling young musician who took on a high-school teaching job to accumulate savings to do his own work. The makeup job is impressive, because early in the movie, Dreyfuss looks like he is in his 20s again. Over the course of the movie his appearance transforms into the sexagenarian of the end.

I have devoted the first two paragraphs to Dreyfuss, because he is the movie. If the viewer doesn't accept him grappling with his vocation as a teacher and how that interferes with his aspiration to be a composer and his status (clearly not a vocation for him!) as father, the movie fails.

As it is, I think the script bites off more than any single movie can chew. There are almost enough subplots to last a season of a television series. (Indeed, it's surprising that there has not been one, in the tradition of "Fame!" and "The Paper Chase.") Plus there are splices of images of presidents and other historical figures and popular songs attempting to signal the shifting context of passing of the three decades Mr. Holland spends teaching. Styles in hair, clothes, and glasses also change, but again, the success of the movie depends on Dreyfuss's aging.

The teacher-movie genre involves the teacher being misunderstood (and turning off) students and administrators, gradually finding ways to inspire students without getting fired by skeptical administrators, molding some seemingly hopeless cases into modicums of success. And he or she does not know how much he or she has meant to students until some syrupy tribute occurs. The blueprint for a portrait of a whole teaching career is "Good-bye Mr. Chips," and the final tribute in "Mr. Holland's Opus" seems particularly derived from that model (which depended upon Robert Donat aging credibly, which he did well enough to snag an Oscar in the apex year of Hollywood production, 1939).

Dreyfuss is very, very good: wry, wistful, eschewing mugging, displaying but not standing on his dignity. While I was watching the movie, Glenne Headly, as his wife Iris, did not make much impression, but a day later, her portrayal of the parent who has a relationship with their son seems strong. William H. Macy and Olympia Dukakis do William H. Macy and Olympia Dukakis turns. Jay Thomas turns in an interesting performance as the football coach who befriends Mr. Holland. Jean Louisa Kelly sings well, but is not very compelling as the talented student who wants Mr. Holland to run away with her.

Two of the hopeless students are notably touching: a very young Alicia Witt as a squeaky clarinetist, and the black champion wrestler (Damon Whitaker, I think) who needs an academic credit, is hilarious in his inability to feel the beat (or even conceive of what a beat might be).

Coming to terms with his son's disability is too predictably heartwarming. The defense of the music program and the indifference of the principal (Macy) is very predictable, too. And the final triumph seems lifted from a fairy tale, but it is saved by perfect (under)playing by Dreyfuss.

The movie is too long, particularly one year's class play. As a tearjerker, "Mr. Holland's Opus" is conventional, and as a teacher movie it does not break new ground (for that, there's "Election"). As a vehicle for Richard Dreyfuss to develop an adult character, however, it is superb. Whether the movie succeeds as a defense of high-school music programs, I don't know, because, in my case, it is "preaching to the choir." My high school's music program was important in my life, and I think that music programs should be available to today's students.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older