School of Rock
First screened in October 2003 / Most recently screened and reviewed in October 2025
Director: Richard Linklater. Cast: Jack Black, Miranda Cosgrove, Joey Gaydos Jr., Kevin Alexander Clark, Robert Tsai, Maryam Hassan, Caitlin Hale, Aleisha Allen, Rivkah Reyes, Z Infante, Angelo Massagli, Veronica Afflerbach, Jordan-Claire Green, Cole Hawkins, James Hosey, Brian Falduto, Jaclyn Neidenthal, Joan Cusack, Mike White, Sarah Silverman, Adam Pascal, Lucas Papaelias, Kate McGregor-Stewart, Wally Dunn, Lee Wilkof, Kimberly Grigsby, Frank Whaley, Tim Hopper, Suzzanne Douglas, Sharon Washington. Screenplay: Mike White. In Brief:
All-access pass to full family delight at the edge of anarchy, with big-kid and boy-man concerns. Black is sublime.
VOR:④
Technique is pretty standard, but it's rare to see this kind of zany-pants energy in a non-animated context or such a meld of kid and adult wavelengths.
I only saw School of Rock once, during its first run, and I laughed the entire time. One of the friends I saw it with is gone; I lost touch with the other, his wife. Seeing School of Rock with these offbeat, art-loving, theater-owning hippies only slightly older than my parents is among my very favorites of many great memories of these two.
The movie itself is also a favorite memory, so I can't believe I hadn't rewatched it since. I love it just as much, and I cackled just as constantly. Jack Black remains my pick for Best Actor that year, not only because of the bottomless font of indefatigable Mötorhead energy, not only because of the weapons-grade commitment to the physical and spiritual bit, not only because of the core of irresistible sweetness and the fact that there's no movie without him, but because the euphorically funny Black never lets us forget that Dewey/Ned is a hopeless BABY, unfit for the pantheon of Great Moxie Teachers, and all the better for it. Dishonest, narcissistic, less evolved than many of his temporary, perfectly played, pre-adolescent charges, Dewey also shows good, humane instincts to kid after kid in vulnerable moments and has embraced exactly who he is, which more people should absolutely do. Who can say if he's changed these kids for the better? I do think because they knew him, they have been changed for good, and I love a movie that says sometimes the most debatable or even dubious people can be watersheds in our lives, through good intentions and by coming along in the right way at the right time, unlocking something in their chaotic or complicated way that no one else had unlocked for us. Maybe we have been that chaotic or complicated inspiration to someone, even as I suspect there is only one Dewey.
School of Rock was the first time Linklater took a directing gig on a project that had germinated completely outside of his orbit. I think he was even a late replacement, and White believes he rescued the movie. Sometimes he even saves White's script from itself, containing the damage of the two shitty parts for adult women, and presenting all the kids as tiny people with their own viewpoints and personalities, not as blank devices sitcom cut-ups or the Seven Dwarfs or gawping idolators. Even when the edit doesn't make sense or a beat feels forced, Linklater's guiding hand and heart are special here.
Here's the kicker: I watched this again because I'm thinking about enlooping School of Rock in a lecture I'm giving about Godard. Dare me to do it? Want to give me a grade on this test? Come to my next public talk, "Paris, Texas: Jean-Luc Godard, Richard Linklater, and the Roads ro Nouvelle Vague" at 10:30am this Sunday in Chicago's Siskel Film Center, right before an all-35mm double feature of Breathless and Nouvelle Vague, all part of this year's Chicago International Film Festival. And yes, I do want a prize for that title. Grade:B+
