The Man Who Wasn't There

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

The Coen brothers made this 2001 movie in the tradition of other film noir movies. It is set in 1949 to point to a time when Hollywood produced stories in this genre. It contains certain elements that fit these types of stories, including a seedy view of humanity with people caught in a web of deceit and criminal activity, filmed in atmospheric black and white. But this motion picture also contains elements of existential philosophy which allows it to reflect on the human predicament.

The main character is Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton). As he readily admits, he is “the barber,” (which would have been another good title for this film). The first shot in the movie is that of a barber pole, spinning its red and white stripes repeatedly, with no final purpose achieved.  In a way, that Sisyphus activity mirrors the lives of the characters. In existential philosophy, a person is in “bad faith” if he or she defines oneself as something external, because it denies the subjective, self-reflecting complexity of the human individual. In the film, for the most part, people don’t remember Ed’s name. If they remember him at all they only know him as “the barber.” That is why to others, as an individual, he is the man who wasn’t there.

The storytelling irony here is that Ed hardly ever speaks outwardly, but the whole tale is told by him, solely from his point of view, in a voice-over (we later find out that a magazine paid him to tell his story), which actually reveals through his observations that he is more than just his job. But his lack of engagement with others, his lack of surface emotion, makes him look like a sleepwalker, which emphasizes Ed’s alienation, his outsider status in society. Since we are restricted to identify with Ed through his narration, the audience, feels set apart from the rest of Ed’s world, too. His taciturn personality is highlighted by the fact that the other men he associates with, co-worker, Frank (Michael Badalucco), Big Dave Brewster (James Gandolfini), Creighton Tolliver (Jon Polito), and lawyer Freddy Riedenschneider (Tony Shalhoub) seem to never shut up. (Even the replacement barber Ed hires later in the movie talks all day long). Ed’s blank, glum appearance is indicative of the pessimistic, negative world in which he lives.

That doomed, helpless outlook shows up in various ways. Frank, reading the news, says the Russians exploded an atomic bomb, and “we can’t do a thing about it.” Ed, talking about where he lives, says his home is a bungalow, which has basic appliances, like a garbage disposal. After the description, he comments, “Guess you could say I had it made.” It is a sad assessment of what the working class is supposed to be satisfied with. The first shot of Ed’s wife, Doris (Frances McDormand), shows her checking out how she looks in her undergarments. Her make-up is important to her. In an interview, McDormand said that Doris, who is from a peasant Italian background, wanted to have glamour in her life, but with time, that hope faded. She finds solace in her appearance and her job as an accountant at the Nirdlinger department store, the place which sells glamorous things. She also relishes in the attention paid to her by Big Dave, her boss. He likes to tell stories about his heroic actions in the war, which contrasts with Doris’ boring life, and which makes Big Dave an appealing character to her. Ed says that he and Doris go to church each week, which sounds like maybe they at least have religion to provide an uplifting feeling. But he quickly follows up by saying that they attend the weekly bingo game. He says Doris didn’t believe in life-everlasting, and that bingo was the height of existence. Life here is cynical and uninspired.

Ed doesn’t even find bingo enjoyable. He doesn’t feel the need to “entertain” guests, though Doris still invites Big Dave and his wide-eyed wife, Ann (Katherine Borowitz) to dinner. (Despite Big Dave’s big talk, he runs the store because it is owned by his wife’s family, so he hasn’t really achieved his position on his own). The way that Doris pays attention to Big Dave, the way she laughs at his jokes, makes Ed suspect that the two are having an affair. But Ed is so detached from life that the infidelity doesn’t phase him, as he says, “It’s a free country.” Ed is a passive individual. He became a barber by “marrying” into the job. Frank is Doris’ brother and owns the barbershop. However, when Tolliver walks in as a customer, and talks about looking for an investor (after someone locally pulled out of the deal) in a new invention, “dry cleaning,” Ed’s first response is that the man is probably running a scam, but this time he questions that maybe his negative attitude toward life has relegated him to just being “the barber.” He contemplates changing from being passive to becoming proactive.

We then have a scene where Doris sits in a tub, self-absorbed in reading a magazine. She doesn’t even look at Ed, but asks him to shave her legs. He dutifully does so, and this grooming act is as close to intimacy that occurs between these two, with Ed having to do the barber job even in his own home. While still reading, Doris says without feeling, “love you,” as if uttering an obligatory afterthought of thanks. Perhaps Ed then goes to Tolliver after realizing how unrewarding life is for him after this episode. Tolliver doesn’t even recognize Ed without his smock, which again shows Ed’s sole identification is that of being a barber. Ed at first doesn’t trust Tolliver because in his world one is suspicious of anything being positive. Ed initially sees the wig-wearing, salesman personality of Tolliver as a possible swindler. But Tollier is legitimate, and offers a fifty/fifty split of the profits with Ed, who needs to get $10,000 dollars to invest. Tolliver in contrast to Ed and Doris, is an optimist, and says when one door closes (the man who declined the investment) another door opens, in the person of Ed. As we see later, this positive attitude is punished, not rewarded in this environment. It is appropriate that Ed will be a “silent partner,” given his quiet nature. Ed’s plan is to monetarily exploit his own wife’s affair by anonymously blackmailing Big Dave and getting him to pay the ten grand.

We then get a scene with Ed and Frank in the barbershop, and Ed seemingly talking nonsense about hair. Ed observes how the hair just keeps growing and they have to keep cutting it. His statement reminds us of the barber pole’s repetitive movement with no end purpose. He is voicing an existential view of the absurdity of life, which he finds unsavory. That is why he says he wants to mix the cut hair with dirt, showing his disgust with his perception of his life as being part of the pointless cyclical nature of existence.

Doris drags Ed to an after-hours party at the store where she works. Big Dave takes him aside and confesses his plight to Ed. Big Dave was the one who pulled out of Tolliver’s deal, and he believes that the dry cleaning entrepreneur is the blackmailer, since the blackmail note asks for the same amount that Tolliver wanted for the investment. Big Dave figures Tolliver saw him with the woman he was carrying on with at the hotel where Tolliver was staying. Of course, Big Dave doesn’t admit that it is Doris he was with. Supposed war hero Big Dave shows he is not really the courageous guy to look up to, and his pathetic crying in this scene adds to the negative outlook presented in the film. The scene also demonstrates that Ed’s deceitful action has negative domino-like repercussions, since Big Dave won’t be able to open up the new store with Doris in charge, and Big Dave’s wife, Ann, will be hurt if her husband’s cheating is exposed. He will lose everything, since it is his wife’s store that employs him.

The next scene is a fitting contrast to what has just happened. Ed comes across a teenage girl, whose nickname is Birdie (Scarlett Johansson), playing classical music on a store piano. Ed is drawn to her talent. She, unlike others, remembers his name, seeing him as an individual. For Ed, she represents the hope for the future that innocent youth might be capable of, and which contrasts with the adult sordid, depressing existence in which Ed finds himself inhabiting. Her name implies that she could soar above those hopeless individuals that populate Ed’s world, including Ed himself. It’s possible that her nickname could awaken Ed’s own ability to fly, represented by his last name, Crane, so that he could rise above everyday dreariness.

After Big Dave leaves the money at a drop, Ed seals the deal by signing Tolliver’s business papers. After Ed and Doris attend an Italian wedding on a farm, Doris is reminded of how little she has distanced herself from her unglamorous upbringing and gets drunk. Her negativity about life is expressed when she is sarcastic to the young married couple, saying, “Life is so goddamn wonderful you almost won’t believe it. It’s a bowl of goddamn cherries.” After returning home, Ed, watching his wife sleep it off, recounts how the two met on a blind double date. Even then she drank too much, probably trying to find escape from a unfulfilling life. She liked it that Ed didn’t talk much, and said after only two weeks that they get married. Ed suggested that maybe they might want to get to know more about each other first. Doris’ response was, “Why? Does it get better?” Her answer reinforces the unhappiness and lack of hope in her world.

In the middle of this story, Ed gets a call from Big Dave to meet him at his office in the store. It is late and they are the only two there. After Big Dave paid the blackmail money, he then decided to confront Tolliver when he started to suspect he was the person extorting him. He beat him until Tolliver told Big Dave that he got his money from Ed and wasn’t a blackmailer. Now Big Dave realizes that Ed knows about the affair with Doris and that Ed is ruining their lives for the dry cleaning opportunity. Big Dave attacks Ed, who is able to grab a letter opener in the struggle. He stabs Big Dave in the neck and Big Dave bleeds to death. Ed leaves and returns home, and unemotionally, finishes his story about how he and Doris met and were married. His lack of feelings even after causing the death of another person show how removed he is from life,.

Policemen come to the barbershop and Ed assumes they are there to arrest him, and he seems, again, to be passive and ready to meet his fate. However, the cops tell him that it is his wife who has been arrested for murder. She was cooking the books for Big Dave so he could embezzle funds and the authorities believe she killed him to cover up her complicity. Ed goes to Birdie’s father, the local lawyer, Walter Abundas (Richard Jenkins), for help. Walter admits to his incompetence and recommends another lawyer. Walter, like Doris, drinks too much, and spends hours doing genealogy research, his two forms of escape from the dreariness of his life. For Ed, his escape into a sense of peace occurs when he listens to Birdie’s music.

Ed visits Doris in jail. She has a black eye which shows the damage the incarceration is inflicting on her. He brings her makeup, which shows how Ed understands her need to hang onto her desire for “glamour,” which is almost impossible, given the circumstances. Because Ed does not admit his guilt in the death of Big Dave, he stops Doris from admitting her infidelity. In his mind maybe he thinks they’re even. After Frank mortgages the barbershop to pay for legal costs (another example of negative results resulting from wrong choices), Ed hires the accomplished lawyer that Walter recommends, Freddy Riedenschneider (a name that appears in The Asphalt Jungle, a Coen Brothers tip to the film noir genre). The movie presents a rather negative view of attorneys with this character. Freddy eats like a glutton at the best restaurant in town (symbolizing how he drains his clients), and stays in the most expensive room at the best hotel. He tells Ed he will be charging him tons of fees, including the cost of a private investigator. Freddy, as was said earlier, does all of the talking, and is condescending. He says to Ed, “I do the talking. You keep your trap shut. I’m an attorney. You’re a barber. You don’t know anything.” Ed once more is defined by his job, what the external world reduces him to.

Ed now finds himself even more alienated from life as he says, while watching people on the streets walking, that the recent events make him feel like he has “made it to the outside.” Big Dave’s wife, Ann, visits him, her eyes wider than ever, and tells Ed that she knows that Doris didn’t kill her husband. She relates this wild story about how, during a camping trip, Big Dave was abducted by aliens. She thinks his death is part of some type of government-extraterrestrial conspiracy. Life has become so absurd that people look for some type of explanation to bring meaning to existence, no matter how far-fetched, so as not to face the possibility that life may not have any absolute purpose.

Riedenschneider is not interested in truth. He just is concerned with strategy. He doesn’t care if Doris killed Big Dave, only that she didn’t confess to anything. In a meeting with the lawyer and Doris, Ed finally confesses to save Doris. But, the lawyer says that doesn’t work because there are no witnesses to back up his story of killing Big Dave, and it just looks like Ed is sacrificing himself for his wife. Ed tries to find Tolliver to back up his claims, but the man is missing. Riedenschneider, in another meeting, has a different plan, and it is an existential one. He references the scientific “Uncertainty Principle” (proposed by Werner Heisenberg) which says that just by observing something, you change it’s reality. He says, “the more you look, the less you really know. It’s a fact, a true fact. In a way, it’s the only fact there is.” The lawyer’s private detective found out that Big Dave was an office clerk during the war, so he was a phony when holding himself out to the community as a war hero. The argument here is, the more you look at something, more doubt presents itself. For Riedenschneider, that translates to “reasonable doubt.” He argues that someone who knew of Big Dave’s service record may have been blackmailing him. Who that person may be can’t be known, because nothing that is scrutinized can ever reveal the whole truth. He presents a world that is without understanding, which is as noir as film can get. The trial never takes place, because Doris takes her own life. Ed later finds out from a cop that Doris was pregnant with Big Dave’s child. Perhaps that fact and how far her life had turned for the worse brought her to suicide (like I said - not a happy world we have here.)

Ed says he was now “like a ghost,” the man who isn’t there. His reality as a person is vanishing, and that is why he says of himself that his only existence was tied to the fact that he “was the barber.” He, like Ann, looks for answers somewhere.  He reads about UFO’s, and goes to a medium, who he realizes is a phony, which just reinforces his pessimism about living. After a music competition, he sees Birdie with a young boy, and Ed is intimidating toward the youth. It’s as if he wants to keep Birdie pure, untainted by growing up, which would include sexual experiences, so that he could save her from another life “going down the drain.” He takes Birdie to a musical expert, but this man dashes Ed’s hopes, saying that Birdie is a nice girl, but ordinary, and might make a good “typist.” On the drive home, Ed can’t face more mediocrity, and says the music teacher is wrong. But, he has projected onto Birdie his own hope. The girl admits that she really has no ambition to become a pianist. She is very grateful to Ed, and proceeds to try to thank him by performing oral sex on him. Her fall from grace in Ed’s eyes surprises and literally damages him as he gets into a car accident.

Birdie sustains a broken collar bone. While unconscious in the hospital, Ed remembers an episode with Doris dismissing a salesman and looking at Ed with disappointment because Ed didn’t get rid of the man. They sit on their couch and say nothing. Even Ed’s memories are disappointing. Ed wakes up to discover he is being arrested for killing Tolliver. The submerged car with Tolliver inside was discovered by a young boy who was swimming. The business documents that Ed signed were with Tolliver. The police think that Tolliver found out that Doris stole money for the deal, and Ed killed him to silence the man. Ed knows from Big Dave’s confession that he beat Tolliver, and so he was the one who killed Tolliver and dumped the body.

Ed mortgages his house and hires Riedenschneider to defend him, at least until the money runs out, and then so does the lawyer. But while being Ed’s attorney, he offers more existential arguments about the unknowability of life. Ed says his attorney told the jurors, “to look not at the facts, but at the meaning of the facts. The he said the facts had no meaning.” He argues that Ed was no murderer, because he was too “ordinary” to commit such an act. He was just a barber. And being ordinary, he was “modern man,” like the jurists, and they would, in a sense, be finding themselves guilty. He paints a bleak picture of existence. But Frank interrupts the proceedings with an impassioned anger against Ed for bringing about the death of his sister. There is a mistrial, and with Riedenschneider now gone, a judge, who has no compassion for Ed’s situation, sentences him to death. The legal system obviously is a failure here: Doris kills herself and her unborn child after being imprisoned for a crime she did not commit; Ed is sentenced to death for killing the wrong man.

Just before his execution, Ed is now in the chair instead of a customer, and someone is shaving him instead, to inject lethal drugs. It appears that he can’t escape the barber scenario while in this world. Knowing that he is about to die, Ed now feels completely free in a way from the ties that bind people to everyday life. He lives up to his name as a “crane” flying above it all, gaining a larger perspective. He says, “It’s like pulling away from the maze. While you’re in the maze, you go through willy nilly, turning where you think you have to turn, banging into the dead ends.” But seeing it whole gives him some peace.” He also says that in death, “Maybe the things I don’t understand will be clearer there, like when a fog blows away.” For some of those who try to find ultimate meaning while alive in this world, life may only offer a limited view of the road ahead.

The next film is The Natural.

Friday Night Lights

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

I’m from Philadelphia, so I guess it’s sacrilege that instead of Rocky, this 2004 movie, based on true events that took place in West Texas in 1988, is my favorite sports film. Yes, it takes several liberties with the book by former Philadelphia Inquirer journalist Buzz Bissinger on which it is based. But, it not only shows the negative aspects of the extreme preoccupation America has with football, but also balances those observations by presenting the positive rewards of team spirit and the indelible gratifying youthful memories that extreme sports competition can create.

The opening establishing shots show the vast Texas expanse of barren landscape, which suggests why the people in a mainstream town like Odessa turn to the excitement of football to fill up the empty spaces in the lives of its residents. (Much of the cinematography is hand held, not consisting of artistic, staged shots, which gives the film more of a realistic, documentary feel). These citizens close up their businesses to go to the football games. They name their pets “Panther” and “Mojo” after the team’s monikers. The radio stations’ broadcasts are filled with the comments of their listeners who speculate on the chances of the Permian High School football team. The camera moves from the wider shots to focusing on the players’ hands and feet, and football gear that must work together to win. One radio caller shows how the town is totally invested in football when he says that even if they pay the coach $100,000 a year, it's worth it if the team takes the state championship. We begin to see the pressure that is piled onto the minds and bodies of the players from all sides to not only succeed, but to dominate the sport in which they compete. Mrs. Winchell (Connie Cooper) drills her son, the self-doubting, serious senior quarterback Mike (Luca Black), not on mathematics or English, but on football plays. (Mike has conflicting responsibilities, because his mother is sick, and he feels that he can’t go away to college and leave her. He has an estranged sibling whom he calls in a phone booth. Mike looks like he is in a prison, alone, and from whom he gets no help in caring for the mother). Even at pre-season practice, college scouts sit in the stands, as the team members realize that their futures may depend on every move they make on the playing field. Former state champion Charles Billingsley (country music singer Tim McGraw, in a terrific performance), wearing his championship ring, as do many men in the town, marches on the field and humiliates his son, Don (Garrett Hedlund), a running back, for fumbling the ball. In an interview, when asked what it’s like having a football legend for a father, Don conveys a great deal about the burden placed upon him by not saying much when he responds with, “Next question.” He says that in a small town, if you “screw up” everyone knows it. There is no place to hide your failures.

The team has built its whole offense on one player, African American student Boobie Miles (Derek Luke), who has a great physique, and can do it all: run; catch; throw. His abilities make him so egotistical, that his self-absorption does not allow for any room to care about being part of a team. He tells Mike, after the quarterback says Boobie hasn’t lifted weights like the other players, “This is God given. The only thing I gotta do is show up.” He sees himself as chosen by God, and does not have to earn his place as part of the team. For him, he is the team. His boasting is an affront to the oppositely quiet Ivory Christian, aka Preacher Man (Lee Jackson), who exudes stoical strength. On the field, after Don’s father has humiliated his son, Boobie says to Don that he doesn’t have to worry about hanging onto the ball, because he “ain’t never gonna get the ball. Your job is to be blocking for Boobie and I don’t care if your dad is sitting over there crying.” Don goes after Boobie for his selfish insensitivity, which shows how the star player’s attitude divides the team that should be thinking about how to work together.

But, Boobie’s talents only revolve around football. When asked about his grades, he says he gets all “A’s,” because he is an athlete. He has nothing to add about his courses. He says, “Hey, there’s only one subject. It’s football.” His lack of any other knowledge shows when he doesn’t know the word “distinguished” in the college material sent to him, ironically from institutions of higher learning trying to recruit him. Later, he thinks a MRI can fix a knee injury. This emphasis on sports at the expense of academic disciplines, shown in Mike’s session with his mother, is echoed in a radio comment. A man says, “There’s too much learning going on in that school,” a sad revelation of how things have turned upside down, where sports is thought of as the primary part of the curriculum, and academic studies are considered to be extracurricular.

The town will not give the players a moment of rest from the responsibility heaped on them. While they eat in a car, a man drives up and asks them in mid-bite if they are going to win State, be undefeated, get it done. The implication is that if they don’t succeed, their lives are ruined. When they eat at the burger joint, a  thirty-five year old man, driving in his car, yells to Mike, Don, and Chavez (Jay Hernandez) about going to a party with the other football players. The boys comment on his age, which implies how the man is still living in a state of arrested development, not having moved on from his youth. A former title winner wants a picture of his baby with Mike, who he calls the next Texas State Championship quarterback. He tells Mike that he should not waste a second of being on top of the world at age seventeen, because “before you know it, it’s done.” He says, “After this, it’s just babies and memories.” There is this carpe diem feeling that hovers over the movie about how fleeting are the youthful exhilarating feelings of triumph, indestructibility, and freedom.

Don is also trying to have some seventeen year old fun before the grueling football season is to start. He takes a girl home, and starts to make out with her. But, his father, like the town, won’t give him a moment’s escape. He barges in on them, drunk, and starts to wrap Don’s hands around a football with duct tape, yelling at him for not being able to hold onto the ball. His father is a bitter man, who has not been able to make the transition from being a high school hero to being an average,  working stiff. He wants to recapture the idol worship of his youth by vicariously experiencing the accomplishments of his son, who he sees as not being capable of achieving greatness. At one point, after a game loss, Charles kicks out the windows of the car, saying he needs air because Don makes him sick. He takes off his championship ring, presses it into his son’s head, asking him “Can you touch that?” He then throws the ring out of the car window, which implies that his son’s failures, which he shares, has brought him shame, and has invalidated his entitlement to past glories. After he has sobered up, Charles says he didn’t mean half the things he said. But, he echoes what the man with the baby said to Mike. He says that winning is the only thing important his son will have in his life. He says that is not only an ugly fact of life it is the only fact of life. He tells Don that he has only one year to make memories. Don found his dad’s ring, and gives it back to him, trying to show that he doesn’t want his father to feel like a failure because of him.

After the exhortation to enjoy the moment, Mike goes to a party. But, even here peers test him to see if he is worthy of their expectations. A local beauty wonders why Mike doesn’t have a girlfriend, and asks if he is gay. He says no, but she then asks, “Can you prove it?” He then has sex in the bathroom with her, but for Mike the act is more like another challenge on an obstacle course rather than a pleasurable event. At a dinner party where Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) is a guest, wives complain about the size of the players. There is a “size matters” theme here from the females, as even Gaines’ wife later talks about how big the opponents are. The men have to measure up on the macho meter, as did Mike at the party. The team may be called the Permian Panthers, but their nickname, displayed on the side of the high school building is “Mojo,” which is a magical ability, but is often associated with a man’s sexual power.

The man who experiences the full force of the town’s intimidation is Coach Gaines. The radio callers and the community leaders constantly harass him about the team’s efforts. They are like backseat drivers, telling him how he should do his job, and they Monday-morning quarterback like mad. At the dinner party mentioned above, racism (more emphasized in the book) surfaces when one of the women says to use Boobie on defense, too, because nothing will hurt that (n-word). Her remark shows how the white leaders just see the black player as a tool to be used for their own glory, and don’t value him as an individual. Gaines says, in a bit of ironic foreshadowing, that he doesn’t want to use Boobie on defense because he doesn’t want him to get hurt. The coach’s response to the pressure varies as the story progresses. At the beginning, he passes on the weight of the obligations by saying that the team must protect the town’s reputation. He says that they are in the business of winning, and asks them if they can be “perfect” because that is what it will to take to achieve their goals. On the locker room wall, there is a sign that reads, “Whatever it takes,” which doesn’t leave much room for human imperfection.

In the first game of the season, Boobie runs for touchdowns, throws for one, and catches the ball, taking it into the end zone. Permian runs up the score. Toward the end of the game, Gaines sends in the third-string running back, Chris Comer (Lee Thompson Young) to substitute for Boobie. In what appears to be just a humorous moment, Comer is ready to run onto the field without his helmet. He gets called back, and told to find his headgear, which he can’t locate. This funny scene actually illustrates what happens when the exuberance of winning becomes so carried away, a player forgets about his own safety. Gaines chastises Comer, but then recklessly puts Boobie back in the game, putting him at risk for injury that he said he wanted to avoid. Of course Boobie thinks he can’t be stopped, and even wants to kick the extra point after a touchdown. His arrogance and the coach’s negligence have repercussions. Boobie tears a knee ligament when he is tackled. A shot of one of the opposing players quietly congratulating the tackler shows how football can be sadistic when hurting another player is praised. Boobie wouldn’t allow for the possibility of injury, of failure, and he has no backup plan. And, the coach had built his team around one “star” player.

Boobie is in denial. He only wants to hear from the local doctor and the radiologist after the MRI that he can play again. When he is told he can’t, he says it is a conspiracy because the MRI was taken at a hospital in an opponent’s area in Midland. The need to win has been so emphasized that even Boobie’s uncle, L. V. Miles (Grover Coulson), who should be looking out for his nephew’s health, tells Gaines that there was no tear and Boobie is okay to play. The coach keeps asking how Boobie is doing after he seeks medical assessments, but is also in denial because he doesn’t seek verification as to the extent of the injury.

After a devastating second game loss, there is understandable despair on the part of the coach and the teammates. Gaines goes home to a house whose lawn has been covered with “for sale” signs that the fickle townspeople, letting anger overcome loyalty, have placed there. The coach does handle the situation with grace, reassuring his wife by hugging her as she sits looking at the signs. Chavez, Don, and Mike are in a desolate part of town, which mirrors their empty feelings, taking turns at target practice. Chavez is more upbeat, but he, unlike Boobie, has good grades, and has a shot at future success outside of sports. He says that that they are only seventeen, and have their lives ahead of them. But, Don, and Mike don’t share Chavez’s hope, and “don't feel seventeen.” They have been made to endure the wear and tear that usually accompanies the obligations and responsibilities that later years exact.

Gaines at first does yell at his players, telling Mike that he is playing “like the village idiot” at one point. Gaines’ sympathetic side does emerge as he visits Mike at his home. He says he knows Mike knows that life isn’t always fair, but if he doesn’t do something about it, then he will always “get the short end of the stick.” Mike admits that his mind isn’t right. Gaines can see that Mike has a confidence problem, and he tells the young man he will one day have to leave his mother and his home, and become an individual. If he is able to take care of himself, reach back and find his inner strength, then Mike will be able to “seriously fly.”

The injury to Boobie becomes a catalyst that causes the players to discover their individual talents and play like a united team. In the next game, Comer takes a lateral pass and runs across the field to score a touchdown. His action sparks the team, as he scores additional times, the players block a kick for a touchdown, and Don runs the ball into the end zone. The Panthers come from behind to win the game. The team wins four straight games. Gaines wants to believe Boobie when he says he can play. He hesitates, but puts him in the next game. Boobie re-injures his knee and must be carried off the field. The permanent loss of their star player temporarily demoralizes the team, and they lose the game. We see Boobie sitting on his porch, looking at men come by to pick up the trash. He looks at them, and we know he is thinking that he may be looking at his future. When Boobie cleans out his locker, he acts cool, but it is heartbreaking to see him in tears in the car with his uncle. He is a young man who thought he would always be a winner, but now is emotionally defeated.

Permian winds up in a three-way tie, and a coin toss will decide which two teams will advance to the play-offs. After all the work and anguish that the players have experienced, their fate will be decided, not by talent and dedication, but by random chance. On the drive to the coin toss, Mike confesses to Gaines that he feels as if no matter whether they win or lose games, he feels as if he’s going to be a loser in his life. He likens it to feeling as if he has been cursed. Gaines admits that it took him a long time to realize that inside oneself, there isn’t much difference between winning and losing. It’s more external, the way people treat you that’s different. He tries to tell Mike that there are no curses, but what we call curses are really “self-imposed.” He says, “We all of us, dig our own holes.” In other words, we can defeat ourselves because we are our own worst enemies.

Permian survives the coin toss, and goes on to win games in the playoffs and reach the state championship game against the unstoppable Dallas high school team. Even after overcoming many hurdles, Gaines faces intimidation from the local community leaders. He can’t even go grocery shopping with his family and have respite from the pressure. The men drive up in the parking lot and tell him that if he doesn’t win, it won’t be good for him. He sarcastically tells them he appreciates their support. As the players board the bus for the final game, Boobie shows up, asking if there is room for one more. He may be a fallen hero, but he shows character, now becoming a true team player, ready to provide inspirational support for his teammates.

Dallas dominates the first half, overpowering Permian, until the closing seconds, when Comer takes the ball for a long run and a touchdown. At halftime, instead of bellowing out a loud speech exhorting his players, Gaines gives a philosophical, emotional talk. He explains what he meant when he asked early in the season if they could be “perfect.” He says, “Being perfect is not about that scoreboard out there. It’s not about winning. It’s about you and your relationship with yourself, your family and your friends.” He says if they can be sure that they did everything they could, then they didn’t let themselves or others down. If they can do that, then they are “perfect.” He urges each to hold in his heart what he feels for the other teammates, and Boobie, who would do anything to be playing with them. Gaines tells them that who they are, no matter the game’s outcome, has made him grateful because his “heart is full.”

The team does exactly what Gaines said they would have to do to be “perfect.” They give it everything they have, and battle back to within one touchdown. The film’s play action sequences here are electrifying and involving, and doubts about the negative aspects surrounding football dissolve in the focus on the these battling warriors. Don brings them close to the end zone in a bruising run, and Mike falls inches short of scoring a touchdown as time runs out, and Dallas wins. Don’s father knows that his son played a great game, gave it his all, and shows that he feels his boy is a winner by going down on the field and putting his championship ring on his son’s finger.

The movie ends with Chavez, Don, and Mike basically saying goodbye to the game near the stadium. Don says he will “miss the lights.” He is bidding farewell to that moment in the spotlight that the champions before him were talking about. We read about what happens to the players, going off to college and finding jobs, but that is all aftermath. Gaines is picking out the players for the next team, and we are told the next year Permian was undefeated. Why isn’t that the season Bissinger and the filmmakers zeroed in on? Because the more dramatic tale, the more involving, and edifying one is that which shows how individuals face adversity, challenges, and persevere. Those are the stories that resonate and inspire.

In a couple of weeks, the next film is Stalag 17.