I finally saw Niki Caro‘s McFarland, USA last night, and it’s nothing less than a wow and a hit — a fleet, heartfelt, real-deal embrace of all the things that make a good underdog sports movie, and blended with a layering of rural Latino culture and the kind of neighborhood/family values that make it all worth it when you get past the materialistic creature-comforts bullshit. (Except for lightning-fast wifi, that is — life is a bucket of shit if you don’t have that.)
Caro, director of the epic Whale Rider (’02), is telling the true story of track coach Jim White, who led a mostly Latino high school track team in a hardscrabble San Joaquin Valley community to an unlikely state championship in the mid ’80s, and then kept the winning streak going into the early aughts.
Obviously a descendant of David Anspaugh‘s Hoosiers (’86), which opened around the time the film’s story unfolds, McFarland USA is a comfort-blanket that you either have to wrap around you or leave the hell alone and walk out of the room. I bought it lock, stock and barrel. I took the wrap. I hate sentimental manipulations in family-friendly movies, but I had to let McFarland, USA in because it deals fair, face-up cards.
Kevin Costner is playing White, and we all know the name of that tune. Costner has long had an affinity for sports sagas, and can do this kind of thing in his sleep. But he’s underplaying like a champ, and he actually finds something unaffected and sincere and even epic in this mostly predictable small-town drama. And it doesn’t matter that you can guess what will happen and to whom. Because Costner and Caro and the 97% Latino cast (Carlos Pratts, Diana Maria Riva and Ramiro Rodriguez are three of the many stand-outs) deliver in just the right way.