December, 2023
By Camila Juarez, Arts & Culture Editor
Radical, based on a true story, was released in U.S. theaters on November 3, 2023. In this Mexican film, a teacher finds a unique way to teach kids at a school in Matamoros, Mexico, a place full of corruption and violence.
Sergio Juarez, portrayed by Eugenio Derbez, is a new teacher at Jose Urbina Lopez Elementary, where he teaches sixth grade students who are among the worst performing students in Mexico. Most of the teachers teach their class by doing the bare minimum. They read informational books, focus more on themselves, and having authority over the “bad” children. As expected, this bores many students and causes them to have no interest in school. Since they live in an area with a lot of narco violence, poverty, and neglect, most end up having no choice but to live a draining lifestyle. Fortunately, Sergio doesn’t care for dominance and decides to experiment with an educational approach that focuses more on the kids interests. He doesn’t follow the curriculum and instead teaches what the kids feel like learning that day.
This movie will bring you to tears when you see what these kids go through in their everyday lives, but it will also make you laugh because of Sergio’s radical way of teaching. It makes you realize how much privilege you have, especially when it comes to the education you get. In this film, we also get to see the lives of some kids, with one being involved in gangs, another having to take care of her little siblings, and one who lives next to hills of trash. Sergio is able to see the potential of these students, but since they live in a corrupt place, their school doesn’t get the funds it needs for educational opportunities like a good library, technology, and sometimes even power.
This movie is fully in Spanish. It made $18.6 million at the box office, and won the Festival Favorite Award at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. It gained an IMDB score of 8.1/10 and a Rotten Tomatoes score of 94%. I highly recommend watching this movie to gain an understanding of how kids in other places live. It’s very easy to forget our privilege, and this movie makes you acknowledge it.
The Cardinal Post 