MOVIE REVIEW
Pressure Cooker (2009)
Los Angeles Film Festival
Movies often inflate the significance of the high-school experience. Typically, they’ll characterize the four years as the high time of life, a carefree collection of cliques, parties, sports, pretty girls, handsome boys and adult figures both memorable and dull. Sometimes, however, in the right context certain of the formula’s oft-repeated elements ring true. “Pressure Cooker,” a new documentary from Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker, co-opts the inspirational-teacher-changes-her-students-for-the-better storyline and makes it resonate.