Matthew Fox just can't seem to get away from plane crashes. After
getting to know him as Jack, the man largely responsible for maintaining
some semblance of order amongst the castaways on LOST, my friend and I were eager to see him deal with the aftermath of another airline disaster in his new movie. Only in We Are Marshall, a true story of tragedy and triumph, his character survives the crash only because he wasn't on the plane.
Seventy-five people in the Marshall University community, including all
but four members of the football team, boarded a plane back to
Huntington, West Virginia on that foggy November night in 1970. As their
town awaited their homecoming, the air was calm, Kelly's Heroes at the theater, Cracklin' Rosie
on the radio. And then, time stood still for an announcement.
Seventy-five people in the Marshall University community had been lost
in an inferno just miles away. The town would never be the same.
As one of the team's coaches, Red Dawson (Fox) - who reluctantly takes
on the role of assistant coach when the team is rebuilt - might well
have been on that plane. Instead, he went home by a different route on
official business. While everyone in the town grapples with grief in the
ensuing months, his is more acute than most as he lost so many close
associates, so many promising young athletes, so much faith in his
ability to protect his players. Whenever I gazed into that tormented
face, I almost expected that in the background, I would hear the strains
of Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, the lament young revolutionary Marius sings in Les Miserables
after realizing that all of his comrades have died in battle. There is
darkness and conflict behind Foxy Matthew's steely eyes - so much that
it's a lucky thing we have a Matthew of more mirth to balance him out.
Matthew McConaughey tends to be a bit of a goofball in his films. Here,
as incoming head coach and father of three Jack Lengyel, he brings a
welcome lightness to the proceedings, initiating most of the movie's
funniest moments. But the humor is the result of folksy charm from a
big-hearted man who volunteers to rebuild the football team after
empathizing with all those bereft families. His way of doing things is
sometimes unconventional, but he's passionate and effective. He's also
very handy with a metaphor; his apt comparisons help him to get his way
on several occasions. Though he is a stranger in this town, he learns
what he can about the deceased and encourages his players to honor them
by getting out there on that field.
The football aspect of the
movie plays much like a typical inspirational sports movie. The team
starts out a mess, consisting mostly of freshmen (thanks to a concession
from the NCAA), some of whom have never played the sport before. The
few returning players grow quarrelsome with all these newcomers wearing
jerseys that only months before belonged to their friends, little caring
about the history behind them. But as the townspeople powerfully
demonstrate early in the film, seeing their beloved football team in
action again could do wonders for this bereaved town, so they have to
pull themselves together. And with Jack on the job, help has a tendency
to come from unexpected sources.
Notable personalities include
Nate Ruffin (Anthony Mackie), who bears the burden of his survivor's
guilt by straining against his injured shoulder in an effort to lead his
teammates to victory; Annie Cantrell (Kate Mara), a lovely young
waitress who, as the fiancee of one of the doomed players, strives to
assuage the sorrow and loneliness of his father (Ian McShane), one
complimentary dessert at a time; and perhaps my favorite character,
buttoned-up university president Donald Dedmon (David Strathairn), who
struggles to settle upon the most respectful course of action in the
face of such tragedy and eventually learns to let passion overtake
propriety for the sake of a grieving town.
The film's two-hour
running time teeters toward the over-long but doesn't cross the line.
Rather, the story's gradual unfolding allows us to witness the changes
that occur over the course of nearly a year as well as get a glimpse
into the complications involved in starting up a football team nearly
from scratch. Appealing aerial views of this coal town surrounded by
mountains add to the film's beauty, as does the soundtrack, peppered
with such mellow classics as Gordon Lightfoot's If You Could Read My Mind and Cat Stevens' Peace Train.
In one of We Are Marshall's
earliest scenes, the ill-fated coach impresses upon his team that
winning games is the only thing that matters. By the end of the film, we
get the sense that this isn't true anymore. While a win is always
something to strive for, Jack and Red have foresight, laying the
groundwork for future champions. For now, the most important thing is
just taking the field, unified, proud to play a part in the continuance
of this team's legacy. We Are Marshall aspires to be a movie
about perseverance, about recovering from an unfathomable ordeal and
somehow finding beauty in the ashes. It succeeds.
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