Mr. Holland's Opus

Mr. Holland's Opus is a 1995 American drama film directed by Stephen Herek, produced by Ted Field, Robert W. Cort, and Michael Nolin, and written by Patrick Sheane Duncan.[2] The film stars Richard Dreyfuss in the title role of Glenn Holland, a high-school music teacher who aspires to write his own composition. The cast also includes Glenne Headly, Olympia Dukakis, William H. Macy, and Jay Thomas.

The film was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay. Richard Dreyfuss also received nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama and the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film.

Plot
In Portland, Oregon in 1965, Glenn Holland is a talented musician and composer who has been relatively successful in the exhausting life of a professional musical performer. However, in an attempt to enjoy more free time with his young wife, Iris, and to enable him to compose a piece of orchestral music, the 30-year-old Holland accepts a teaching position at John F. Kennedy High School.

Unfortunately for Holland, he is soon forced to realize that his position as a music teacher makes him a marginalized figure in the faculty's hierarchy. Many of his colleagues, and some in Kennedy High's administration, including the school's vice principal Gene Wolters, resent Holland and question the value and importance of music education given the school's strained budget. However, he quickly begins to win many of his colleagues over. Holland finds success using rock and roll as a way to make classical music more accessible to his students.

Holland's lack of quality time with Iris becomes problematic when their son, Cole, is found to be deaf. Holland reacts with hostility to the news that he can never teach the joys of music to his own child. Iris willingly learns American Sign Language to communicate with her son, but Holland resists. This causes further estrangement within his family.

As the years progress, Holland grows closer to his students at Kennedy High and more distant from his own son. He addresses a series of challenges created by people who are either hesitant or hostile towards the concept of musical excellence within the walls of the average American high school. He inspires numerous students, but never has private time for himself or his family, delaying the composition of his own orchestral composition. Eventually, he reaches an age when it is too late to realistically find financial backing or ever have it performed.

In 1995, the adversaries of the Kennedy High music program win a decisive institutional victory. Wolters, now promoted to principal, works with the board of education to eliminate funding for music along with other fine arts programs, thus leading to Holland's early retirement. Holland realizes that his career in music is likely over, thinking that his former students have mostly forgotten him and is dejected at his failure to ever have his composition, which he views as his life's work, performed.

On his final day as a teacher, Holland enters the school auditorium, where his professional life is surprisingly redeemed. Hearing that their beloved teacher is retiring, hundreds of his former students have secretly returned to the school to celebrate his life.

Holland's orchestral piece, never before heard in public, has been put before the musicians by his wife and son. One of his most musically challenged students, Gertrude Lang, who has become Governor of Oregon, sits in with her clarinet. Gertrude and the other alumni request their former teacher serve as their conductor for the premiere performance of Mr. Holland's Opus ("The American Symphony"). A proud Iris and Cole look on, appreciating the affection and respect that Holland receives.

Cast

 * Richard Dreyfuss as Glenn Holland
 * Glenne Headly as Iris Holland
 * Jay Thomas as Bill Meister
 * Olympia Dukakis as Principal Helen Jacobs
 * William H. Macy as Vice Principal (later Principal) Gene Wolters
 * Alicia Witt as young Gertrude Lang
 * Joanna Gleason as older Governor Gertrude Lang
 * Terrence Howard as Louis Russ
 * Damon Whitaker as Bobby Tidd
 * Jean Louisa Kelly as Rowena Morgan
 * Alexandra Boyd as Sarah Olmstead
 * Nicholas John Renner as Coltrane "Cole" Holland (age 6)
 * Joseph Anderson as Coltrane "Cole" Holland (age 15)
 * Anthony Natale as Coltrane "Cole" Holland (age 28)
 * Beth Maitland as Deaf School Principal
 * Balthazar Getty as Stadler