SUNDANCE 2023 | Movie Review: "Radical" Educates Audiences On A Powerful True Story

11/12 ForReel Score | 4.5/5 Stars

You can learn just about anything online. In Radical, Sergio Juárez Correa , a sixth grade teacher at Jose Urbina Lopez Elementary played by Eugenio Derbez, knows this well. He even admits to the school’s principal, Chucho (Daniel Haddad), that he learned his unorthodox teaching style from videos on YouTube. With this understanding, he spends a substantial amount of the film campaigning for the underprivileged school to get a computer lab so the children could also have access to the wealth of information the internet has to offer.

Sergio understands the power of having access to the internet. But more importantly, he understands the power of learning how to learn, with the internet simply being a resource to facilitate this. This is what he teaches his students, and through hands-on experiences, atypical classroom settings, and thought provoking conversations, Sergio takes a radically different approach to teaching sixth graders what they should know - challenging common notions of what “what they should know” even entails.

What ensues over Radical’s 127 minute runtime is a poignant and affecting story, balancing the great feelings from a man’s good intentions with the infuriation derived from corrupt behavior. It’s a film that deeply impresses on its audience the importance of providing children their best shot at achieving their dreams at all costs. With inspiration, comedy, and determination all at the heart of this story, Radical pulls on all the right heart strings in delivering this incredible story.

In a nutshell, Radical is about a teacher - Sergio - who upsets the status quo for how teaching is done to better serve the smart and ambitious students that the current education system is failing. Though the positive effects of Sergio’s teaching style are apparent, they do not directly satisfy the district's overcommitted interest in students passing the annual standardized test, a measurement by which teachers are judged and potentially awarded bonuses on. Whether or not the students actually learn the material or simply memorized and regurgitate answers, that seems to be of no interest.

This story is based on the real life events that originally landed this story on the cover of WIRED magazine. In the same way that Sergio understood the power of learning how to learn, Radical director Christopher Zalla understands the power that sharing this story can have on audiences, and he maximizes that effectiveness with a heartfelt approach to recapturing this story with this film’s incredible cast and engaging screenplay.

Headliner Eugenio Derbez is astonishing in his role as Sergio. Though the film often projects dull, muted tones in its cinematography - perfectly symbolizing the dullness students feel without Sergio - Derbez’s screen time always makes for an enthusiastic, energetic, and heartwarming affair. And adding to Derbez’s dynamic entertainment value is a sense of comedy and lightheartedness that counteracts the violence and unfortunate circumstances that plague this community.

Producer and author of the original WIRED article, “A Radical Way of Unleashing a Generation of Geniuses”, Joshua Davis said in my interview with him, “what this story shows, what this teacher shows, and what the dramatizations in the movie show, is that you can overcome and do amazing things… if you focus on the inspiration - on the things that get you excited.” This is certainly a prominent theme in the film, but it is also reflected in the entertainment value and filmmaking quality of this film. Ultimately, Radical makes it clear that its filmmakers are inspired by and invested in this story, and intent on bringing it to as big of an audience as possible. If you ask me, there’s significant power in that as well.

Thomas Stoneham-Judge, Movies, Festival CoverageThomas Stoneham-JudgeJanuary 22, 2023radical, movie review, sundance, sundance 2023Comment