Mel Gibson directed this movie and starred in it. It tells the story of a dedicated  teacher who, through a streak of very unfortunate events, ends up severely disfigured and disgraced. He lives as a hermit in a small coastal community in Maine, ostracized by the locals and shrouded in mystery and pure misinformation. A boy, quite by accident, befriends him and ends up being tutored by him for an entrance exam into a prestigious military boarding school.

It is a story about character in a man whose outside is very flawed but whose essence is strong as an oak and clear and clean as crystal. The normal people around him are the neurotic and hysterical ones. Their prejudices eat them, their pettiness keeps them from having fulfilling lives themselves. But they are in the majority and they dictate how our world is run.

Just and fair it is not. But, as this story tells us, integrity perseveres and the tutor and the student succeed in their own way.

Rating: ***