Two great movies from Linklater and Truffaut.
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We know your watching time is limited. And the amount of things available to watch … is not. Looking for a movie? Nearly any movie ever made? It's probably streaming somewhere. That's a lot of movies. |
Below, we're suggesting two of them, the latest of our weekly double-feature recommendations. We think the movies will pair well — with each other and with you. |
Your weekly double feature: The kids are all right |
 | | Jack Black in a scene from "School of Rock."Paramount Pictures |
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'School of Rock' and 'Small Change' |
In Richard Linklater's inspired musical-comedy "School of Rock" (2003), now streaming on Netflix, Jack Black gets the role of a lifetime as Dewey Finn, a broke guitarist who gets kicked out his band and fakes his way into a substitute teaching gig intended for his more mature roommate, played by Mike White (who also scripted the film). When he discovers that some of these precocious fifth graders are talented musicians, Dewey decides to transform them into his new band, complete with backup singers, a tech crew, a stylist, a manager and groupies. Lessons on math and world cultures are replaced by coursework in rock history and rock appreciation and theory. |
As Dewey surreptitiously wrangles these students into a dark horse Battle of the Bands contender, "School of Rock" becomes, among other things, a master class in directing children — both from Dewey and from Linklater, who each have to harmonize these temperamental human instruments. Child actors are notoriously difficult to manage because even the most seasoned can read as too uncannily grown-up. But the kids in "School of Rock" all get their individual moments while functioning as convincing and delightful organisms, inspired by this goofball guitar-shredder who wants them to loosen up and Get the Led Out. |
No doubt Linklater learned some moves of his own from François Truffaut's "Small Change" (1976), an alternately buoyant and heartbreaking portrait of young children in Thiers, France, in the summer of 1975. Although it is one of Truffaut's most popular and accessible works, the film has been hard to stream anywhere, but Paramount+ offers it under its international title, "Pocket Money." (It's a sad comment on streaming curation that a search for "Small Change" yields nothing.) |
The arrival of Julien (Philippe Goldmann), a poor and physically abused new student, gives "Small Change" some semblance of a focal point, but really Truffaut's slice-of-life strives to present a full spectrum of childhood experience, from silly jokes and mishaps to serious issues of neglect and injustice. Under Truffaut's direction, these kids seem astoundingly real in their uncomplicated innocence and joy, as well as in their intense vulnerability. SCOTT TOBIAS |
Stream "Small Change" (a.k.a. "Pocket Money) on Paramount+. |
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