The Heart of the Game

The Heart of the Game is the latest documentary getting rave reviews. I had the privilege to see it last night. An eccentric college professor decides to start coaching girls basketball at a local high school in Seattle. He has some interesting philosophies and tactics, all of which seem to really work. The school is mostly upper-middle class and white, and in comes a basketball star who is black, from the lower class side of town. The guy coaches this girl, bringing her into her prime, and colleges are knocking on her door already during her sophomore year. There are some twists and turns and drama and court cases and everything. It deals with gender, race, class, urban culture, sports, and more. And all of it is filmed over the course of seven years. First things first, this documentary is complete and utter luck. For whatever reason, this director decides to start filming this coach. Little did he know little Darnelia Russell would be arriving on the scene shortly, and drama would be coming along with her, and all of it would turn into, seven years later, a real-life happy ending. The chances on capturing this are one in a million. It is truly amazing. Second things second, this will win the Oscar for best documentary this year. I'll go ahead and make the prediction now. But in the end, I was a little disappointed. The material is there, no doubt about it. The coach is exceptional, unique, inspiring, successful. He's a great character. The clash of races and classes is there. The shy yet feisty and determined Darnelia is intriguing. Mix it all up with sports, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, and you've got a recipe for a great documentary. But there is no denying the fact that whittling 7 years of footage into an hour and a half is an extremely daunting task. Maybe that's the reason for its downfalls. I don't know what exactly it was, but the way it was presented lacked emotion. We were never given a chance to REALLY get to know any of the characters, to become attached to them. We know the coach and his philosophies, but we don't know him. We watch Darnelia with admiration, but we don't know her. We see these girls and want them to win, but we aren't on the bench cheering for them. Maybe it's the laborious narration, maybe it's the lack of in-depth material (for the sake of getting through 7 years in a concise manner), but whatever it is, I never got attached to the movie until the last 10 or 15 minutes. It's a shame, really, because like I said, the material is there. (And while it never goes far enough with any of the material, I'm glad it didn't go too far, dramatizing the issues, exagerrating or exploiting them. The director should be commended for not going in that direction.) It will get rave reviews because of that material, because it's simply remarkable that it's all caught on film, and because of the last 10-15 minutes. And it deserves the rave reviews, probably. It's definitely worth seeing. But in the end, I know it could have been much more. Maybe I'm just too tough to please, my standards are too high. Maybe I'm a documentary snob.