When filmmakers create movies that involve politics, they’re normally really bad. Liberal director Judd Apatow told Vulture a couple of years back that the reason conservative values don’t work in film is that “Republicans are trying to present themselves as correct, as clean, as Mike Pence–y.”
That may be true for many films that care more about ideas and policy than human characters. Fortunately, it’s not true for Miss Virginia.
The film, which came out on Friday, tells the real-life story of Virginia Walden Ford, now a school choice advocate and visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
Twenty-one years ago, she was just a mother concerned about her son. William had been skipping school and hanging around drug dealers who Ford worried would lure him into their way of life.
Ford wanted to send him to a private school, but she couldn’t afford it. So she founded D.C. Parents for School Choice, Inc., in 1998 and lobbied the government to permit school vouchers. Her efforts eventually led to the passage of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program in 2003. The program “boasts a 91 percent high school graduation rate,” according to Ford’s website.
Despite its primarily political subject matter, this film isn’t about school choice. Aptly named, it’s about Miss Virginia. The film minimizes politics, focusing on the human elements of Ford’s story and crafting a compelling narrative about the steps a mother will take to care for her son.
It doesn’t hurt that Miss Virginia also features many talented actors, including Uzo Aduba (Orange is the New Black), Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket, Stranger Things), and Niles Fitch (This Is Us).
“You might just be formidable,” a congressman (Modine) tells Virginia (Aduba) when she refuses to back down from her mission, despite the unlikeliness of passing any school choice legislation. After watching Miss Virginia, viewers can tell that he’s right.
The film avoids the pitfalls of message-driven media, as it sidesteps the partisan bickering around school choice and other elements of education reform. Miss Virginia is not trying to preach a message; it simply tells a story.
Yet, an underlying message is there. The film was created by the Moving Picture Institute, a production house whose goal is to “entertain, inspire, and educate audiences with captivating stories about human freedom.” As I reported for Philanthropy magazine, those involved with the project set out to tell a human story about issues many Americans face.
“Education is one such problem,” Erin O’Connor, who wrote the film’s script, told me. “But there are many, many others. Great stories can lift us up with a shared, common purpose that transcends political gamesmanship and partisan warfare. We desperately need that as a nation.”
Matthew Modine plays Congressman Cliff Williams, a composite of legislators like former Republican Sen. Jeff Flake from Arizona, who helped promote school choice in the nation’s capital. In Virginia, Williams finds someone “who reignites that spark of why he became a politician,” Modine explains over the phone. (Before then, Williams is more than a little disaffected, and, according to Modine, “It looks like he stopped buying clothes in the 1980s.”)
As a quirky, ill-dressed congressman, Modine plays a strong supporting role. But education reform wouldn’t have begun without Virginia.
“It’s a story about an individual who had the strength to persevere and effect positive change in what has now become thousands of lives,” Modine said of the film. “We live in a world where some things seem so insurmountable, and it’s wonderful when we meet someone like Virginia Walden Ford, who refuses to accept the status quo and opposes a system that oftentimes seems designed to keep people down.”
Miss Virginia is showing in a dozen or so theaters nationwide, as well as online via iTunes.
If the story does inspire viewers to act, Ford won’t mind. She said watching Aduba’s performance gave her chills, and she hopes her story can encourage others to begin activism of their own. “I want people to be inspired,” Ford said, “and to remember that one voice can truly make a difference.”
What makes the film so compelling, though, is its emotional tale about family, power, and grit. Aduba’s performance carries the film, with a story that will resonate with viewers long after the credits roll.
