Roger Ebert's Four Star Reviews, 1967-2007

by Roger Ebert

Both sets of parents are required to pay a small part of the tuition costs. When Gates’s family cannot pay, a member of the booster club pays for him—because he seems destined to be a high school all-American. Arthur at first does not seem as talented. And when he has to drop out of the school because his parents have both lost their jobs, there is no sponsor for him. Instead, there’s a telling scene where the school refuses to release his transcripts until the parents have paid their share of his tuition. The morality here is clear: St. Joseph’s wanted Arthur, recruited him, and would have found tuition funds for him if he had played up to expectations. When he did not, the school held the boy’s future as hostage for a debt his parents clearly would never have contracted if the school’s recruiters had not come scouting grade school playgrounds for the boy. No wonder St. Joseph’s feels uncomfortable. Its behavior seems like something out of Dickens. The name Scrooge comes to mind.