Powerful, engaging, inspirational and important. The Elvis element is cute, but perhaps a bit of a red herring. There is no school assembly where the headmaster belts out “You Ain’t Nothing But a Hound Dog.” Elvis accents add a bit of common man color to an already colorful individual.

Sequences that interweave the streets of a war torn Belfast with those same streets in modern day are striking and profound. The headmaster Kevin McArevey asks students if they knew of the violence that raged when he was a kid. Many of them did not.

The filmmakers expertly capture and contrast the kids' playground behavior with their more careful selves in the classroom. Their headmaster, hell-bent on making them thinkers instead of fighters, serves up the philosophy of ancient Greek thinkers.

What makes this documentary especially important is the loving care given to kids as they try to make sense of difficult interactions and become the people they’re going to be. The film is no doubt a great conversations starter - even in other schools. That said, of course whenever anything meaningful is expressed in a school (at least in America), controversy often follows. Oddly, just as McArevey takes a daring stand in asking his students to challenge all standing thought - even that of their parents - the film ends on a syrupy note. I enjoyed the well earned syrupy note — but felt robbed of finding out how the headmaster dealt with angry parents.

Despite that rushed ending (perhaps the rebuttal was cut) and slight mid production lull. “Young Plato's” big patient loving heart inspires.

-- Books by Ross Anthony, Author/Illustrator --