McFarland, USA (Niki Caro, 2015): USA

Reviewed by Logan Kovarick. Seen at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2015.

After a busy, wonderful, and unique 12 days, the Santa Barbara Film Festival closed with a predictable yet heart warming film, McFarland, USA. A true story about a coach who finds a small group of cross country runners and transforms them into elite competitors that have a shot at the state championship. A Disney produce picture that stars Kevin Costner as the coach, Mario Bello as his wife, and a fresh group of teenagers playing the runners. When walking into this film, Im sure most of audience members knew nothing about this true story. An amazing story that is unfortunately put into the disney fairy tale archetype that we all know is coming. The audience knows that they will overcome the obstacles, we know there will be love, we know they’ll win the whole thing, we’ve already seen this movie, a million times. Its the classic blueprint of a Disney film, so when you walk into the theater the magical castle plays before your eyes, you know what you’re getting. What sets each film apart is its execution, the team behind screen and the cast in front. In this film, the casting just didn’t work for me. Mario Bello’s role as the wife, was bland and lacked depth as well the twenty year old Morgan Saylor playing the newly turned fifteen year old daughter of Bello. It’s so hard to convince a smart audience of a five year difference of a twenty year old and a fifteen year old, those are five crucial years that show on screen very clearly. Sometimes directors can pull that performance out of an actor or the actor can take it upon themselves to do it, but Saylor was so clearly beyond her projected age of fifteen that it immediately took me out of that family chemistry along with Bello’s effortless performance. Both actresses have amazing talent, but shouldn’t have been cast in these roles. Having said that, Costner and his chemistry with the seven teenage cross country runners felt like a family. There really was a sense of camaraderie there and the audience sincerely bought into it. Niki Caro not only did a great job in capturing the bond between coach and player but the loving, hard working, and family orientated town this story takes place in. She sheds tremendous light on the amazing attributes this town has and the connections between family that are in real life McFarland. At the end of the day, while this film was underwhelming, you still walk out of the theater marveling at the true story and leaving with a fuzzy feeling every Disney picture leaves you with.