“Mr. Holland’s Opus” Makes Sweet and Sentimental Music

Richard Dreyfuss soars as a music teacher inspired by the people who love him in Stephen Herek’s Mr. Holland’s Opus (A-). This finely tuned film is filled with clichés and somehow still works, possibly because it deals with dreams deferred and the notion that even life’s smallest notes are part of a collective symphony. The quality of the acting, the music and the overall groundswell has quite a power to move.