This review is about Night School, the documentary, not the Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish comedy, which I am not planning to see, but never say never. The film follows three adults, Greg, Melissa and Shynika, who dropped out of high school and live in Indianapolis where they attend a night school program to get their high school diploma as opposed to a graduate equivalency degree. It is an observational documentary that takes place over the course of an academic year from orientation to graduation. Some students graduate. Others don’t. All of them want a better life.
Night School can be found on PBS’ website under America Reframed, Season 5 Episode 11 until September 11, 2020. The run time is a quick one hour twenty-four minutes. I am uncertain how I heard about this film because I went from being a PBS addict to rarely watching it once I switched from VHS and DVDs to streaming. I rarely watch live television, never heard of America Reframed so I would not have seen it when it originally aired on September 12, 2017, but I did see it a little under a year ago on Netflix before it was pulled from streaming.
Since then, I decided to rewatch Night School, and I left more impressed than after my initial viewing. During the first viewing, there were moments that did not initially make much of an impact because I did not realize how pivotal a person or an event would be in each subject’s life. I also was probably multitasking since the overall storyline felt vaguely familiar to me so I really did blink and miss it. I probably was not paying close attention to anyone other than the main subjects. During the second viewing, because I knew the basic trajectory of the stories and knew which people were crucial to the subjects’ lives, I could appreciate how Andrew Cohn selected certain scenes from probably hours of footage. It is a well-crafted movie with the narrative momentum of a drama without the script. The documentary deserves your complete attention and has a fair amount of suspense if you make enough of an emotional investment in it instead of assuming that you know what to expect.
I would love if Night School had special features so I could find out the behind the scenes logistics of how the filmmaker followed and filmed everything for three people during the same year because either a filmmaker recorded everything and followed each subject the entire year, never missing a moment, or it was fortuitous timing and a great deal of perspicacity. If I was a more cynical person, I would suggest that a couple of those moments seemed staged or were recreations, but instead it could be a testament to Cohn’s ability to find a way to be logistically omnipresent yet invisible enough so people forget that he is present and act naturally instead of stiffly performing for the camera. I may not like soap operas, but I am completely invested in complete strangers’ fortunes. There is no whiff of reality television sordidness in this enterprise.
Night School intersperses scenes in the life of each subject to provide a broader context for what life is like for these adult students of different ages, genders and stations in life. I always find it thrilling to get a peek into real people’s quotidian lives. Because I get exposed to lots of people, I peg people pretty quickly, which only time can determine if my assessments were accurate or not. Cohn crafts parallel stories punctuated by the amount of time left before the final exam. The turning points are so impactful because the scales could tip in either direction, and these adults face a fork in the road: distract from or focus on graduation. Cohn fortuitously chose three students who chose the latter when the prior was a human, logical possibility.
Greg’s family thinks that he is all talk, no substance, and as the most loquacious subject, it is not out of the realm of possibility, but his visible crestfallen reaction to their lack of faith in him shows the seeds of a turning point, not backsliding. Just when he is most tempted, his biggest source of discouragement firmly sets him on the right path after learning the hard way the error of his ways and becomes Greg’s biggest cheerleader. Shynika’s practical struggle to survive should be sufficient to stop her from reaching her goals, but just as the wrong people diverted her from academic achievement, the right people show her predicament as part of a bigger struggle so she does not fall into a treacherous pit of self-condemnation. Sweet Melissa had to leave school because girls were not allowed to continue going to school if pregnant. While it initially seems that her extracurricular activities will satisfy and quell her desire for professional achievement, but instead it provides a wellspring of encouragement that further fortifies her against an expected stumbling block.
While I was thrilled at their achievement, Night School left me wondering how they were faring during a pandemic. Were they still alive? Did they discover that people with college or graduate degrees were struggling and only hovering slightly further above the cycle of poverty? How would they react when they discover that while education was an admirable goal on its own merits, it was far from a surefire escape from poverty? Would they still have access to joy or finally jump in the chasm of despair? The proof that escape may not be entirely possible surrounded them. I was also fascinated by the brief repeat appearances of the supporting characters, the professionals who helped: teachers, school administrators, lawyers, activists. These students’ indomitable spirit was oblivious to the world-weary exhaustion of those with more education. The signs of stress, disappointment, skepticism and anger were clearly written on the professionals’ faces to read yet Melissa, Greg and Shynika did not notice, or they noticed, but it did not deter them. Why? Was their fatigue preferable to their current situation? Probably. It is all about perspective. Every accomplishment was so meaningful whereas if the professionals were like me, they felt as if they plateaued and had much in common with Sisyphus. The difference was material, tangible achievement whereas professionals are in another cycle, a routine.
I would recommend seeing Night School if you have the time, and the topic sounds interesting. Films are empathy machines so if you do not know people like Greg, Melissa and Shynika, I think that it is worth watching and rooting for them. I also worry that while Cohn implicitly provides sympathetic societal context for their setbacks, because it is not explicitly laid out, which could also alienate viewers, a judgmental person may miss the point of the film. It is not exactly a preach to the choir film since it chronicles lives, not positions, but two people can watch the same thing and come away with very different conclusions. All the subjects are black, and black people are not often allowed to be human and make mistakes then seen as deserving of a second chance in the real world. There is a reason that white men with only a high school education often make more money than more educated people of different races. Will this documentary take a step towards conquering hearts and minds to bridge that chasm?
