The Winning Season 2009

I watched this film on Amazon Prime, essentially by doing a ‘Sam Rockwell’ search with the idea that any film with Sam Rockwell in, no matter the topic, would at least be worth watching, even if perhaps it was not the best film you have ever watched.

I was correct.

This is a cliché made into a film. Every problem you have seen in this type of 'loser makes good' film with a losing sports team is in there – I mean every single one. Bullying, gay issues, horrible boyfriends, alcoholism, ex-wife clashes, family dynamics, racism, winning, losing, it is all thrown into the melting pot. Perhaps there is a bit too much, in fact, there is. This small-town basketball team and the individuals involved seemed to have every mini-mountain to traverse that you get in life. The only thing that did not happen is someone had to go to war and did not come back. There is absolutely nothing original in this sports-orientated film. Nothing. If you have watched films at any level, you have seen it all before. You do not have to be a basketball fan, I’m not, I’ve seen a live NBA game and I did not like it, or even a sports fan, that is not the point of this film.

These are the undoubted bad points of the film. I could leave it at that, and you would think ‘well I’m not watching that’ and move on, but, like Sam Rockwell’s character Bill, there is something, despite his many faults, that is good and interesting about this.

Therein lies the rub. The story may be hokey, but the acting from Rockwell, Margo Martindale (excellent) and a whole host of young actors, who are now in their thirties, including Emma Roberts and Rooney Mara, elevates this beyond the usual. The girls in the team are shown to be normal people and not a walking cliché of US school kids, which gives the film an authentic turn, the low-level racism, (that is resolved fairly quickly), comes from the black team member, nothing new but enough to pique your interest.

With Rockwell, Martindale, and Rob Corddry you know there is a comic thread running throughout the story and there is, you laugh throughout the set pieces. Corddry is perfect as the earnest, enthusiastic and honest principal and Martindale as the no-nonsense steady hand at Rockwell’s Bill’s tiller.

Ultimately the film lives or dies on Rockwell and once again he presents us with a character that you should find unpleasant. He is potty-mouthed and he certainly has many poor and weak character traits, but Rockwell somehow manages to show deep down, far inside, there is a decent human being.

The alcoholism is not shied away from and for once in a mainstream movie that is lighter treatise there is no simple solution, when the film ends, and I’m sorry if this spoils it, Bill is not cured, he is better, but as in real life the alcoholism has not ‘gone away’. His family problems are a little more pat in the denouement but even then, we do not get a tidy resolution.

It is a brave choice by the writer and the director, Jim Strouse, in what is essentially a movie that could be said to be ‘family viewing’ to not tie it all up with a bow.

Overall, this is an enjoyable film, it will not be earth-shattering or stay with you until the end of your days, but if you like to see earnest and skilled actors enjoying their job and doing the very best with the material they have and try to present it in a different way this might be the ‘sports-team-comes-good-whilst-everyone-learns-life-lessons’ film for you. There are worse ones out there that is an absolute.

As a footnote, with alcoholism as one of the topics, it is sad to note that it was only eight years later that Shana Dowdeswell, who put in a good show as Bill’s daughter Molly, died from alcohol-related problems at the tender age of 33. Yet we still see jokes glorying hangovers and drunkenness every day on TV, in films and in our personal lives.

It might pay to bear this in mind if you ever watch that film and wonder what happened to that young girl who played Molly.