Reel Classics: ‘School of Rock’

Today’s Reel Classic takes us back to the year 2003, where we first entered into the School of Rock.  Our teacher, Dewey Finn (Jack Black), is an unem­ployed musi­cian who was recent­ly boot­ed from his band, No Vacancy, and is stay­ing with his best friend, Ned Schneebly (Mike White).  Ned once had dreams of being a rock star, but has set­tled into the role of being a sub­sti­tute teacher.  Also shar­ing the apart­ment is Ned’s girl­friend, Patty Di Marco (Sarah Silverman).  She sees Dewey more as a leech and is con­stant­ly try­ing to get Ned to throw Dewey out.  Dewey has­n’t con­tributed to the rent in months and has no job.

Rosalie “Roz” Mullins (Joan Cusack) is the prin­ci­pal at the Horace Green prep school, and find­ing her­self in need of a tem­po­rary sub­sti­tute teacher, tele­phones Ned at his apart­ment to offer him the posi­tion.  However, it is Dewey who answers the phone, and when hear­ing of the oppor­tu­ni­ty to make some mon­ey, pre­tends to be Ned and accepts the position. 

On his first day, not know­ing what to do,  he acts weird and leaves the young stu­dents baf­fled by his behav­ior.  On the sec­ond day he hears some of the stu­dents per­form­ing in a music class and comes up with the plan to engage these kids in rock and roll and enter them into a Battle Of The Bands con­test (in which his for­mer band “No Vacancy” is also to per­form).  The kids are hes­i­tant at first — some are not allowed to per­form rock music by their par­ents, and some do not think they are able to do so.  However, Dewey is per­sis­tent in encour­ag­ing the kids, and recruits those from the music class to play gui­tar, drums, key­board and bass.  He plans to be the lead singer and play gui­tar as well.  Other stu­dents in the class are assigned respon­si­bil­i­ties such as back­up singers, road­ies, band man­ag­er and groupies.  It is the groupies that come up with the name for the band, School of Rock. 

Unbeknownst to the prin­ci­pal, Ms. Mullins, reg­u­lar class­room time is spent prepar­ing and rehears­ing for the upcom­ing Battle Of The Bands.  Dewey’s efforts help raise the con­fi­dence of the kids through their efforts.  One young girl is very self-con­scious due to her weight and does­n’t want to try out for back­up singer even though she has a beau­ti­ful voice.  One kid does­n’t think he is “cool enough.”  Dewey builds their self-con­fi­dence and per­sis­tent­ly encour­ages them by way of teach­ing them that rock and roll is a way to “Stick it to the man” and stand up for themselves. 

Dewey sneaks the band mem­bers out of school while the class­mates stay behind to cov­er for them.  They go to the audi­tion for the con­test but are told the slots are all filled and there is no room for anoth­er band.  Dewey tells the con­test staff that these kids have worked hard and look for­ward to com­pet­ing, and that they all suf­fer from a ter­mi­nal ill­ness.  In the mean­time the kids play the part and all act like they are sick. 

Dewey:  “I want­ed to give them some­thing to look for­ward to, to keep their spir­its up.  Look at them — they’re ter­mi­nal.  Every last one of them.  And all they want­ed to do before they bit the dust was play Battle of the Bands.”

Battle of the Bands direc­tor:  “What do they have?”

Dewey:  “It’s a rare blood dis­ease:  ‘Stick-it-to-da-man-neo­sis.”

The direc­tor gives them the go-ahead.

All is look­ing well until Dewey learns that there is a par­ents’ meet­ing sched­uled the night before the con­test.  In the mean­time, Ned receives a pay­check from the school and real­izes that Dewey has been imper­son­at­ing him.  The par­ents’ meet­ing does not go well for Dewey as the par­ents begin to ques­tion what he has been teach­ing their chil­dren.  Then Ned, Patty and a police offi­cer show up, and Dewey final­ly con­fess­es to all what he has done.  Ned asks Dewey to move out.

All seems doomed, but the kids have not giv­en up their dream.  They arrange to skip school, pick up Dewey and pro­ceed to the con­test as planned whether their par­ents approve or not.  I’ll stop here so there are no spoil­ers.  But let us say that the kids have learned some­thing from Dewey after all.

The idea of the movie came from writer and co-star Mike White.  He stat­ed that the idea came to him after mov­ing into an apart­ment next to Jack Black and hear­ing him blast­ing the rock music and see­ing him danc­ing in the hall­way.  The direc­tor, Richard Linklater (also known for the film Dazed and Confused) insist­ed that he would only agree to direct if the kids actu­al­ly played the instru­ments and sang.  Most of the kids in the film had nev­er act­ed before but were musicians. 

In a lat­er inter­view regard­ing School of Rock, Jack Black stat­ed “My best mem­o­ries are just that group of kids, and how fun­ny and great they were.  It’s def­i­nite­ly the high­light of my career, I can say that. Honestly.”  He also described him­self as “the Pied Piper of rock music” as he led the stu­dents astray only to empow­er them.

Joan Cusack played a very inter­est­ing role in the film.  She was the meek and mild-man­nered prin­ci­pal Ms. Mullins.  But with­in her was also a pas­sion for rock and a pas­sion for Stevie Nicks.  There is a scene where she and Dewey are shar­ing a drink and he plays Stevie Nicks on the juke­box.  We see the light come into her eyes the groove begin to appear.  Interestingly, she and Jack Black also co-starred in anoth­er film with music as a basis — High Fidelity.

School of Rock was very suc­cess­ful at the box office.  It became the high­est-gross­ing music-themed com­e­dy of all time (lat­er sur­passed in 2015 by Pitch Perfect 2).  Though it received no Oscar nom­i­na­tions, Jack Black was nom­i­nat­ed for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor — Comedy or Musical.  He lost out to Bill Murray for his role in Lost in Translation.  The sound­track was nom­i­nat­ed for a Grammy for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture.

Critics were also high­ly com­pli­men­ta­ry.  The review­er for New York Post described it as “a hip and con­sis­tent­ly hilar­i­ous fam­i­ly film.”  The Washington Post crit­ic wrote, “A movie for almost every­one, from boomer par­ents (who remem­ber their teens and twen­ties) to their teenage kids (who can’t wait to get start­ed with same).”  The New York Magazine review­er wrote, “It would be a shame if only kids went to see this film.  Adults who can still plug into their inner rock­er, if only to play air gui­tar, will love it too.”  Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus states, “Black’s exu­ber­ant, glee­ful per­for­mance turns School of Rock into a hilar­i­ous, rock­ing good time.”  In his review of the film, Roger Ebert wrote that School of Rock “proves you can make a fam­i­ly film that’s alive and well act­ed and smart and per­cep­tive and fun­ny — and that rocks.”

In 2008 there was dis­cus­sion about mak­ing a sequel that had Black’s char­ac­ter Dewey lead­ing a group of sum­mer school stu­dents on a cross-coun­try field trip to explore the his­to­ry of rock.  That did not come to pass, though Jack Black was still dis­cussing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a sequel in a 2023 interview. 

In 2015 a Broadway musi­cal ver­sion opened with Andrew Lloyd Webber pro­vid­ing the orig­i­nal score and the sto­ry line writ­ten by Julian Fellowes (cre­ator of Downton Abbey).  It played for over 1,300 per­for­mances before clos­ing in 2019.  A ver­sion of the sto­ry also came to tele­vi­sion, run­ning for three sea­sons on Nickelodeon begin­ning in 2016. 

An inter­est­ing note regard­ing this pic­ture and the music in it.  The sound­track includes a song by the very pop­u­lar group Led Zeppelin, “Immigrant Song.”  Led Zeppelin was well known for not allow­ing their music to be used for com­mer­cial pur­pos­es.  Director Richard Linklater and Jack Black teamed up with the idea of film­ing Jack Black in front of 1,000 scream­ing fans plead­ing with the band to allow “Immigrant Song” to be used in the movie.  The film clip was deliv­ered to the band and they agreed to allow it to be used. 

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) rates School of Rock at 7,2 of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a Critics Score of 92% and an Audience Score of 64%  (a bit sur­pris­ing to me).  In search­ing my Roku device, I found the movie avail­able for free stream­ing on sev­er­al sites includ­ing Hoopla, Kanopy and Paramount+.  Hoopla and Kanopy are both avail­able free with your library card.  There is also a copy of the DVD on the shelf at the Clark County Public Library. 

To me, School of Rock is a bit of a pleas­ant escape that is fun, enter­tain­ing and a bit of a “time trip” for some of us.  You may find your­self play­ing air gui­tar along with it as men­tioned by the New York Magazine review­er.  We all need a bit of fun escape in these times, and School of Rock could just be your tick­et.  Enjoy the trail­er below.

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from sources includ­ing the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Wikipedia.