Based on the real-life experiences of co-writer and co-executive producer Nathaniel Deen, who appears at the end to bestow his approval on the dramatization and invite the audience to take its lessons to heart, “Brave the Dark” is a low-key inspirational indie that sensitively elicits empathy and sympathy without ever pushing too hard or simplifying complexities.
Short on surprises but brimming with warm-hearted insight, the film may have a few too many mildly edgy elements to qualify as family-friendly entertainment suitable for all ages. Even so, it likely will pass muster with parents looking for entertainment they can share with children in their early teens and older. Perhaps even more important, the children just as likely will appreciate being brought along to see something a tad more substantial than sanitized kid stuff.
The year is 1986, the place is Lancaster County, Penn., and the storyline focuses on the relationship between Nathan (Nicholas Hamilton), a troubled high school senior who’s going nowhere fast, and Stan (Jared Harris), a genial drama teacher who’s determined to point his at-risk student in a different direction.
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After being orphaned at an early age, Nathan spent a few years with his insensitive and unforgivingly strict grandparents, neither of whom knew or cared enough to give him the emotional support he needed, before bouncing through a series of foster homes. Now he’s a homeless ne’er-do-well who sleeps in his car, attends classes only irregularly, and hangs out with the wrong crowd. How wrong? His buddies convince him to join them on the burglary of a home appliances store, then let him shoulder all the blame when he’s the only one arrested for the crime.
Nathan’s girlfriend dumps him — at the insistence of her protective father — and most other members of the Garden Spot High School faculty view him as a troublemaker on the verge of devolving into a lost cause. Indeed, just about the only person in his corner is Stan (Jared Harris), an avuncular drama teacher who assumes responsibility for his rehabilitation — even though Nathan initially resists (and, to a large degree, mistrusts) anyone who tries to draw him out of his downward spiral.
Nathan, along with many of his classmates and some of Stan’s fellow faculty members, is understandably suspicious of Stan’s motives. (“Everybody’s got an angle,” the emotionally battered student snaps, sounding very much like someone using cynicism as a defensive weapon.) The movie never actually introduces a character who accuses Stan of being a groomer, but it’s clear some onlookers consider that possibility at least fleetingly. And maybe even by the audience, especially as “Brave the Dark” repeatedly emphasizes Stan’s fondness for musical comedies — note the “Babes on Broadway” poster on the wall of his home — and his long-ago unfulfilled ambitions to become a professional actor.
Only gradually do director Harris and his screenwriters indicate that if Stan has any ulterior motive, it’s his desire to ameliorate the loneliness he’s felt since the death of his mother a year or so earlier. Well, that and his need for assistance in building a set for the school’s upcoming stage production of “Flowers for Algernon.”
It takes quite a while for Nathan and Stan to begin forging a bond of mutual trust, and longer still before Nathan feels comfortable to discuss in detail how he was traumatized by witnessing the deaths of his parents. But this deliberateness works very much to the film’s advantage, as it allows Harris and Hamilton sufficient time to illuminate all the diverse facets of their characters, and generate an arresting chemistry that is sometimes humorous, sometimes acrimonious and always credible. The two actors really do bring out the best in each other, making it all the easier for us to develop a rooting interest in both characters.