The Santa Barbara Film Festival premiered Niki Caro’s film for Disney, McFarland, USA to a rousing reception. I guess you’d have to be a native Californian, or Hispanic, to really get why the film is important. If you didn’t come from here it might seem like a cliched underdog sports movie. But if you come from here, if you know the dynamics that play out on our streets, in our schools and in our communities, McFarland will mean something entirely different.
My experience of the film was somewhat marred by two white, probably wealthy Santa Barbara residents who laughed at the movie almost throughout. I knew what they were laughing at. They have that privilege, of course. It is easy for them to hold that film to the standards of the usual type of film they probably appreciate. They would make great Academy members. Maybe they are Academy members. Even bleeding hearts have their dark side. And indeed, no everyone makes room in their heart and mind for films that maybe aren’t the most original or aren’t going to set film critics afire with passion but will do more for the people who, as George Bailey would say, “do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community” than any movie in the march towards Oscar.
I don’t even really know what the point is in writing about this film. We all know how the system works. The film will open, get panned savagely by critics who practically outnumber ticket buyers by now. It will play in the Hispanic pockets around the country but mostly in Los Angeles. The people of McFarland, USA will be proud that a movie was made about them and their minor/major success. To the people for whom this film will matter will hopefully get to see it and really that’s all that matters here. To me, if one kid languishing in the public school system here in Los Angeles sees this film and finds some worth within themselves, it was worth it.
Major props to Disney for making the film and props to Kevin Costner for starring in. Without his participation, it would likely not exist. I say this not knowing the backstory at all.
Here in Los Angeles, and all through California, we gringos live alongside a thriving, evolving and growing Mexican-American and/or Hispanic community. We drive by fields of produce dotted with bent over men and women making a hard-earned living. We drive by the Home Depot where men of every age wait early in the morning for work of any kind. They represent the poorest, the middle class and the upper classes here in California yet they are mostly ignored by the Hollywood community but for a few films here or there that pop up occasionally.
McFarland is about a “difficult” coach played by Kevin Costner who gets stuck with a job in one of the poorest towns in the state, McFarland. It is one of the many small towns that pop up near agriculture areas. This one a ways away from Bakersfield. The town residents assume Costner and his family will move to Bakersfield and commute in but they decided to move to the tiny town where chickens cluck around in yards and everyone knows everyone else.
One of the great things Niki Caro does, apart from really making sure this movie isn’t about a “white savior” who rescues the poor sad immigrant families – it really is about two distinct cultural groups coming together – is to subtly highlight how in the USA there are varying shades of “equality.” This is brought home when the team sings the National Anthem. The two Americas could not be more distinct – there is one for the white people who are born into privilege and another entirely if you are Mexican-American. The same way it’s harder for African Americans to break through to the awards race (while the British Steve McQueen was mostly embraced) it is doubly hard for Mexican-Americans and any American born Latino to catch a break in the industry while the “Three Amigos” who hail from Mexico itself have no problem whatsoever. Once you are placed in the “servant class,” as they never were, you have a much harder time getting out of it.
The best speech in McFarland is when Kevin Costner, who has never been better, frankly, tells the runners what superheroes they are – that some of them have to get up and work in the morning picking produce and then run for hours cross country to compete. Even with the semi-predictability of it, and the way the critics will rip it to shreds (how do I say this delicately, some movies aren’t made FOR YOU, film critics. There are other people out there who will find value in this film) I could not help but cry girly tears throughout.
In the end it’s a film about giving back and building up our country and our forgotten communities. Good lord, it’s terrifying to watch every year as our own film industry does not even do this, to say nothing of our 1% corporations who farm out their jobs overseas. There is work to do here. A lot of work. McFarland, more than any other film I’ve seen recently, addresses this beautifully.
I know what people are going to say about it, people in my world. It might even get complaints from some hispanic authors about white saviors and such. They should remember that this is a true story and there are many heroes in it. With 38% of our Californian population Hispanic, and many whole communities that are invisible to a great many of the remaining 70%, it is up to the storytellers to remind us where we ourselves have dropped the ball.