Movie Review: The Heart of the Game
Rate This Article
What Parents Should Know
Parents should be aware that the documentary includes images
of high school basketballers devoted to becoming a nationally
ranked team: The girls are occasionally roughed up on the court
and rebellious against their hard-driving coach. One girl
reveals she was sexually abused by an individual coach (and she
comes back to help her original coach work with younger
players); another becomes pregnant and misses a season,
returning as a single mother. Some cursing (including an f-word
and s-word).
Families can discuss the ways that Darnellia matures over the course of the film, transitioning form rebellious adolescent to responsible teammate. How does her coach describe these changes, as he encourages her to believe in herself? How does Darnellia come to depend on her family and teammates in order to become a great player?
Common Sense Media Review
An intelligent, challenging, and entertaining documentary,
THE HEART OF THE GAME tells the stories of high school girls in
Seattle. Its focus is Darnellia Russell, whom her coach Bill
Resler introduces right off as a star. He's a tax professor at
the University of Washington, graying and slightly round, who
confesses that when he took the coaching job at Roosevelt High
seven years ago, "I was honestly frightened." But the Rough
Riders were looking for a new direction and he soon devoted
himself to finding it, encouraging his players to knuckle down
with vivid, unconventional metaphors. He calls the team a "pack
of wolves," "tropical storm," and "pride of lions," encouraging
them to think of their opponents as prey: "Draw blood!" they
learn to roar when emerging from a time out.
In return, the girls work hard and excel. Before Resler's arrival, the team is unranked; after, it improves its post-season every year. In part, this improvement has to do with their enthusiastically aggressive style of play (one player says, "I love contact"; another says she'd love to "play football... to just crush someone to the ground"). But even as the Rough Riders adopt a traditionally masculine style of play, they also, as several male interviewees observe, maintain the ethos and technique associated with women's basketball: they pass the ball, support one another, and downplay individual stardom.
And yet, the documentary, narrated by the community-minded rapper/actor Ludacris, finds its shape in following Darnellia's compelling story: As she matures, she learns to cope with competing demands on her time, including her schoolwork; as Resler observes, though she's been discouraged in the classroom for much of her life, "She must understand how smart she is" (and indeed, she says she wants "to be the first person ever in the family to graduate from college"). At the same time, she maintains and even improves her superb game. Even when she faces what seems a career-stopping event -- pregnancy -- she has her baby, learns to rely on her family and her baby's young, devoted father, and comes back. Her teammates rally behind her when the WIAA (Washington Interscholastic Activities Association) rules that she cannot return to play, because she's now in her fifth year in high school.
Even as local media create a swirl of controversy (on a radio call-in show: "Who the hell is taking care of this baby?"), her lawyer argues the ruling discriminates against girls: "The problem with punishing the girl is how come there's no consequence for boys who help create the pregnancies? And then, if the WIAA grants no pregnancy waivers to maintain an athlete's eligibility, does that mean they are tacitly endorsing abortion?" (This reported in the Seattle Post Intelligencer , in 2004).
While Bill Resler and Darnellia are plainly inspirations -- for one another as well as the team -- the movie also keeps sight of the multiple lives intertwining throughout this process, with attention to opposing teams and Darnellia's family members. Already being compared to Hoop Dreams , probably the best sports documentary ever, Heart also does some important work that film does not, namely, it considers issues specific to girls, including a sexually abusive coach one girl hires to improve her personal game and the subtle and unsubtle ways that misogyny still shapes expectations of women athletes and girls with ambitions.
Families who like this movie should also see the documentaries Hoop Dreams and Soul in the Hole, or the fiction film Love & Basketball.
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
