Review: McFarland, USA
When McFarland, USA begins, football coach Jim White (Kevin Costner) has been fired from his job as a result of his short temper. He moves his wife (Maria Bello) and two daughters Julie (Morgan Saylor) and Jamie (Elsie White) to the titular town, a small agricultural community with a predominantly Mexican-American population. "This place is a dump," Julie declares, looking around their nondescript home dominated by a mural of a Mexican woman offering bounty. Dinner at a local restaurant finds them eating tacos instead of their preferred burgers, and a tense encounter with a group of possible gang members frustrates Jim. His wife reminds him they have no choice but to stay and make it work.
Jim is not exactly thrilled with his new position as assistant football coach, nor does he find it amusing when the insolent teens refer to him by his last name or "Blanco." Jim is biding his time - in his mind, McFarland is a purgatorial pit stop until a better opportunity comes along. Then a curious thing happens. He notices how fast his students run - picking crops in the unrelenting heat and loading up on beans and rice makes them ideal cross-country runners. Though he has no experience in coaching a cross-country team, Jim goes about convincing the doubtful principal and the even more skeptical boys to form a team. Naturally, they are underdogs. Naturally - this is a based on a true story Disney sports film after all - they are bound to be triumphant.
It is all too easy to roll one's eyes at the predictability of this particular genre. Not to mention the condescension of having yet another white figure swoop in and better the lives of underprivileged minorities. Yet those charges gain very little traction here. Director Niki Caro and screenwriters Grant Thompson, Christopher Cleveland, and Bettina Gilois do remarkably mindful work. Jim is not depicted as the great white hope - he is a man who has his share of issues, not least of which is anger management. He can be tremendously selfish - he's more concerned that his best runner may have just walked off the team than letting his daughter down on her birthday.
The boys, for their part, are not bowled over by Jim. Running isn't exactly putting food on the table. As one of the boys' fathers tells Jim, "Each hour they train is one less hour they work." That is lost money. Jim experiences the manual labour firsthand when he joins the boys one morning, and is shocked to learn that they are paid by the field, not by the hour. This care and attention in delving into the boys' lives and the community may result in a film that is a tad overlong, but it also results in a richness that renders the boys' victories more emotionally impactful.
Costner does sterling work here, emitting a quiet command and well-worn elegance. He displays generosity with his young co-stars, most of whom are newcomers discovered in the area and all of whom deliver natural and engaging performances. The film ends with the real Jim White and the members of his original running team alongside the next generation of cross-country runners. It is a rousing coda to a heartfelt, tear-inducing, and stirring film.
McFarland, USA
Directed by: Niki Caro
Written by: Grant Thompson, Christopher Cleveland, Bettina Gilois
Starring: Kevin Costner, Maria Bello, Carlos Pratts, Johnny Ortiz, Rafael Martinez, Hector Duran, Sergio Avelar, Morgan Saylor, Elsie White, Michael Aguero, Diana Maria Riva, Valente Rodriguez, Danny Mora
