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Movie Review: Next Goal Wins

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The new movie “Next Goal Wins” is another one of those inspirational sports stories that would never work, unless this was a true story.

For reasons that are a mystery for most American sports fans, Soccer is a sport that is very big in the rest of the world, never in the United States. Even though this sport is so mind-bendingly and unbelievably boring, people around the world go crazy watching this sport. Despite all of this, you have to respect the athletes who run around a huge field, back and forth, trying to use their feet and head to score a goal – something that rarely happens in most soccer matches. The typical score of a soccer game is normally 1-0.

Early on in this story, the history of the American Somoa International Soccer team – including an incredible 32-0 loss in 2001 to Australia is mentioned, as well as the fact that the international Samoa team never even scored 1 goal in the entire history of the soccer team. Then a down on his luck, recently fired and frequently drunk soccer coach Thomas Rongen, played by Michael Fassbender is forced to take the worst coaching job in international soccer – the coach of the worst team in history – American Samoa.

When Rongen arrives in Somoa, he is introduced to bad surroundings, a run-down team facility, and a group of out-of-shape and broken-down group of soccer players. There is no doubt that turning a team like this around is impossible, but somehow Rongen, even though he is either drunk or drinking most of the time, manages to slowly improve the team.

One of the most important members of the team is the first transgender international soccer player Jaiyah, played by Kaimana. At first there are some major conflicts between Rongen and Jaiyah, that over time are resolved through conversation and understanding – one of the best parts of this film.

There is nothing new within this typical sports story, we have all seen movies like this before – including an ending soccer game that was completly expected. Unfortunately this movie will probably be out of the theaters in about 2 weeks, due to the very low and incorrect 41% Rotten Tomatoes rating. This movie is about a 70% with a very marginal recommendation, mainly due to the acting and overall message.

Movie Review: Anatomy of a Fall

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The new movie “Anatomy of a Fall” is a foreign language film from France that based on its very high 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes might just win this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. As a screenwriter, one of the very first things you learn about screenwriting is to “show not tell”. This is a movie, not a book, and in a movie, it is always better to show action and subtext rather than have a great deal of dialogue. Regardless of anyone’s opinion about this movie, it is mostly about a great deal of dialogue, violating this fundamental rule of screenwriting. One problem with this much dialogue is that trying to support a “too long” of 2 1/2 hours with this much talking and less showing is much harder for the audience to sit through.

This entire story is about an impressive log cabin, somewhere in France, and a man who falls from the attic and is found dead by his son. The rest of this story is all about the French police, lawyers and the eventual murder trial, trying to piece together what happened to this man who fell do his death. The story becomes more and more complex as new information about the relationship between a wife Sandra Voyter played by Sandra Hüller and a husband Samuel played by Samuel Theis is brought out in court, during the murder trial. Seeing how a French court works is one of the most interesting parts about this film.

In one scene there is a huge argument between Sandra and Samuel that has acting that is as good as the scene in “Marriage Story”, 2019, between Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson. This is one of those films that tries to force the audience to figure out what really happened and as a result, there is too much uncovering of new information and not enough final resolution.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this movie is too high 96%, with my rating at 85%, mainly for the acting, subtracting from the story which was boring in too many areas and a 2 1/2 run time that was way too long.

Movie Review: The Holdovers

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Considering all the movie ideas that have been tried and produced over many years, seeing a brand new story is more rare than it has ever been. One thing about the very good new movie “The Holdovers”, about a teacher and students held over the holidays at a wealthy private boys’ school is that this one is definitely something new.

The Holdovers stars Paul Giamatti as Paul Hunham, who is an unhappy history teacher at an all boys private school in the year 1970. Paul is disliked by just about all of his students and colleagues and is carrying around baggage from his personal and professional life that is bleeding into his relationship with just about everybody he works with.

Due to several unusual circumstances, 6 boys have to stay at the school for a few days after the holiday break and as Christmas approaches all the boys leave except for one, Angus Tully played by Dominic Sessa. It turns out that Tully’s parents are unreachable and he will have to remain at the school with Paul Hunham over Christmas and into the new year. The other person who stays at the school over the holidays is Mary Lamb played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph who is the head chef at the school.

What is most impressive about this film is not only the acting but the way, due to the growing friendships and relationships of these 3 very different people, what might be at first mundane or boring becomes interesting. As the story grows there is a great deal of transition as these 3 people learn about the pain of their personal lives, show empathy to each other, and change from 3 people who are mostly at odds and at the end of this story become friends.

As far as Paul Giamatti there is a high probability that he will receive his second Oscar nomination for this performance (his last was for his great performance in “Cinderella Man”, released in 2006).

I agree with the very high 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes for this great film about relationships, personal pain, holding down a job, and life. I give this movie my highest recommendation.