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MR. HOLLAND’S OPUS – Michael Kamen

December 18, 2025 Leave a comment

THROWBACK THIRTY

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

I have always had a soft spot for films about inspirational teachers – Dead Poet’s Society is one of my all-time favorite films – and 1995’s Mr. Holland’s Opus is another one that offers a similar sentiment. Directed by Stephen Herek and written by Patrick Sheane Duncan, the film stars Richard Dreyfuss as Glenn Holland, a talented but struggling composer in Oregon in the 1960s who becomes a high school music teacher, intending to do the job temporarily to earn money so he can finish his symphony. At first, Holland’s students are bored, but he begins to inspire them by incorporating rock and roll and other popular music into his lessons; over the course of the next 30 years his role at the school becomes central to his identity, even as he struggles to balance his career with his personal life, most notably his relationship with his son Cole who is born profoundly deaf. Read more…