Written by Linda
April 10, 2009
In a refreshing twist, we finally have a sports film that cheers female high school athletes.
The Heart of the Game, a spirited documentary that feels like a real-life version of all those "against all odds" Disney sports movies, celebrates, for once, women's sports. In this case, we follow high school girls basketball, specifically once coach, and his star player.
Seattle's Roosevelt Roughriders girls basketball team was in quite a slump when they hired Coach Bill Resler, who was a tax professor at the University of Washington, and whose only coaching experience was giving basketball tips to his own three teenage daughters. Since he had nothing to lose, he came in and completely revamped the team's offense, and riled up his players by comparing them to wolves, or tropical storms, and other unstoppable forces of nature. His players even admit his outrageous enthusiasm is a bit corny, but they love it and acknowledge that it works. During Resler's first season, the team is virtually unstoppable, making stars out of several players, but falling short of the state championships.
In the meantime, an African-America middle-schooler name Darnellia Russell is ripping up the courts in a different part of town. Her coaches encourage her to attend Roosevelt for high school. After all, it has a better academic reputation (being in a largely white part of the city) compared to Garfield, in her own minority-dominant neighborhood. When she starts at Roosevelt, she immediately butts heads with Resler, but makes Varsity as a freshman anyways, with her amazing street-ball style of play.
The Heart of the Game follows several years in the life of the team, and ends up focusing on Resler and his relationship with his most brilliant player. He realizes that Darnellia has an extra tough time that her more priviledged teammates don't have. She has a long commute, she has a tough time keeping her grades (though Resler thinks she just has to realize that she is the brilliant person he knows she is), and when she is 18, she faces a huge obstacle, that might just compromise her goals of not only a state championship, but scholarships to schools that have been knocking on her door for years.
The film is inspirational and gripping, offering twists that are made for a dramatic big screen remake. We also meet a couple of the other girls, a star named Lindsey who breaks out during Resler's first season, and another talented player named Devon, who we find later was fighting secret problems of her own. Luckily, for all involved, the film ends up being uplifting and inspirational, and doesn't lead us down a heartbreaking path (thank goodness) considering all that goes down.
The extras of this fine film include more interviews with Coach Resler and Darneilla, exposing the playful friendship that they have now that she is an adult, a commentary track by Ward Serrill, who did not expect this documentary about girls' basketball to grow into a years-long project, and a "Making Of" featurette.
* As a footnote, in the 2006-2007 season, when this DVD was released, the Roughriders went 24-0, then lost their last two games in the Class 4A state tournament.
