Front of the Class (2008) on Netflix
Brad Cohen's tics disrupt his Missouri classrooms, and no one can say why. His mother searches medical books for an answer while Brad sets his sights on teaching.
- Netflix4.1/5
- IMDb8.1/1011,963 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
Brad Cohen, twelve, lives in Missouri with his mother Ellen and his younger brother Jeff. His tics get him in trouble at his school and with his father Norman, and a teacher calls him to the front of the class to apologize. Ellen looks for answers from doctors, where a psychiatrist blames the divorce, then reads about Tourette syndrome in a library medical book; the diagnosis is confirmed and there is no cure. Brad attends a support group and decides he wants a different life. A middle school principal calls him on stage at a concert to explain his condition, and the students applaud; he decides to become a teacher. As an adult in Georgia he lives with his roommate Ron and interviews for elementary school teaching jobs.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Front of the Class (2008)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- After Brad Cohen spoke at a 2007 Special Olympics conference following Timothy Shriver, the audience gave him a standing ovation, and Shriver suggested turning his life into a film and became its executive producer a year later.
- To portray Brad Cohen's tics accurately, James Wolk and Dominic Scott Kay watched videotapes and worked with a dialect coach, a process they described as a "Tourette's boot camp"; Cohen called their portrayal "very, very authentic".
- Unlike most children, whose tics steadily decline in adolescence, Brad Cohen still had frequent, loud vocal tics and barking, and joked that he hoped he would not "get kicked out of my own movie".
