Everyone has teachers that they remember for various reasons, both good and bad. Often we hear about people who chose a certain career path or discovered a new calling because of heavy influence or encouragement from an educator. Similarly, there are those who retain bad memories or even emotional scars from teachers who tormented them in the classroom.
The 2007 comedy Mr. Woodcock plays on this latter scenario and takes it one step further: what if you discovered that your mom is dating your least-favorite high school teacher? Most people would do everything in their power to break the relationship up, and that’s precisely how John Farley reacts in this film.
Plot summary (with possible spoilers): John Farley (played by Seann William Scott) was a fat kid in high school with no athletic ability to speak of. As such, John was an easy target for Mr. Woodcock (Billy Bob Thornton), who made him change in front of the class, forced him to attempt pull-ups in his underwear, used him as a practice dummy to show off wrestling moves, and generally humiliated him at every opportunity.
Now an adult, John is a self-help guru whose new book Letting Go is a national bestseller. While on a promotional tour, John’s agent Maggie (Amy Poehler) tells him that the mayor of his hometown in Nebraska wants to award him a key to the city. This is a big deal to John, so he rearranges his schedule in order to accept the award.
When he arrives in Nebraska, he discovers that his mom Beverly (Susan Sarandon) has been dating Mr. Woodcock for five months. John is incredulous, of course, and the situation is exacerbated when he sees how serious the relationship is. He can’t believe that Beverly doesn’t realize just what a sadistic jerk Mr. Woodcock is.
John visits the school to see if Mr. Woodcok has perhaps changed in the intervening years, but it’s clear that he hasn’t. He still belittles the kids and makes them run laps or do push-ups at the slightest infraction.
From that point forward, John decides to drop everything and somehow prove to his mother that Mr. Woodcock isn’t who she thinks he is. The rest of the film follows his attempts to best Mr. Woodcock, save his mom from marrying a jackass, and regain some self-esteem in the process.
My Reaction: I’d read a few negative reviews of Mr. Woodcock before renting it, so I was surprised that the film was actually entertaining in places. That’s not to say I liked it or anything, but it wasn’t as horrible as some people have made it out to be.
I did appreciate the fact that the few minor subplots didn’t surface long enough to derail the main storyline. That seems to be a problem with lots of would-be comedies these days, so this was a refreshing change. Yes, there was a potential love interest for John, but she was only in a couple of scenes and they didn’t detract from the overall flow of the film.
Similarly, Maggie (the agent) was used sparingly, only to remind us that John had a life outside of Nebraska that he was neglecting in order to deal with Mr. Woodcock.
Because of the limits placed on these subplots, I thought the overall pacing of the film was excellent. While this wasn’t exactly a laugh-a-minute comedy, there were hardly any boring spots because nearly every scene contributed to the main story.
Nevertheless, I still wasn’t satisfied with Mr. Woodcock as a whole. While Billy Bob Thornton was fantastic as the titular character, Seann William Scott couldn’t carry the load as John. And since he was really the main character, the movie became painful to watch after a while. Thornton should have been the one in a majority of scenes, not Scott. That would have made for a much better film.
In addition, I thought the ending didn’t fit in with the rest of the movie. The filmmakers spent 98% of the film establishing what a complete and utter jerk Mr. Woodcock is, and yet at the end, John just suddenly changes his mind and decides that the guy is good enough for his mom anyway. Huh? How did that happen?
There wasn’t even a convincing conversion scene here; the change of heart just takes place on its own. And it was made all the worse because Mr. Woodcock really was an asshole, so John was actually doing a good thing by trying to protect his mom. They shouldn’t have ended up together, IMO.
Overall, I thought Mr. Woodcock was a slightly above average comedy. There were a few laugh-out-loud moments, and the film moved along fast enough to hold viewer interest for the 80-some minute running time. I give it 6.0 stars out of 10.