Movie Review Monday #49: School of Life

My dear friend Tiffany was in town a couple of weeks ago, and we decided to watch School of Life on Netflix because there was nothing else that looked good and it starred Ryan Reynolds. It's basically the story of a teacher, played by character actor David Paymer, who wants to be the cool teacher more than anything in the world, but then Ryan Reynolds starts teaching at the same school and is obviously way cooler. Thoughts:


1. I recognize David Paymer from about a million things, but the top movie that comes to mind for him is Heart and Souls, a weirdly sweet film about Robert Downey Jr seeing dead people. Anyway, he wasn't great in that and he wasn't great in this. But the dude has 146 credits according to My BFF imdb. My point here is that my husband is a really good actor, so a mediocre actor who has worked steadily since the 70s gives me great hope for Jeff's future.

This is from Heart and Souls.

Whoa, edit time! My BFF imdb just also informed me that Paymer was nominated for an Oscar for his work in Mr. Saturday Night. I may need to watch that sometime just to see him in a good performance. Also, David Paymer, if you read this, I apologize for calling you a mediocre actor. What do I know, anyway - I'm a civilian.


2. If a teacher put as much work into his classes as Ryan Reynolds does in this film, I would worry about them. He seriously had full costumes for half of his classroom scenes, and I genuinely wondered if he was going to make Robin Williams' carpe diem speech at one point.

3. Ryan Reynolds is a charming actor. Not amazing or brilliant, but charming and entertaining. Tiffany and I were discussing the fact that we've never seen him in something we didn't like. I'm avoiding The Green Lantern specifically to keep his perfect streak in tact.


4. There was a twist in this film. I expected a twist, but I didn't guess what it was exactly, so there was that.


5. Unfortunately David Paymer's character essentially spirals into a jealous madness throughout the film. That went on for just a smidge too long. For example, I thought him ending up at the school in his pajamas one morning was definitely the last straw, but there was still more. Shortening up that conflict could have made this movie significantly stronger.


In conclusion, I give this one claw up. It wasn't terrible, and it wasn't great. It was meh.