Directed by: Peter Berg
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Derek Luke, Garrett Hedlund, Lucas Black, Jay Hernandez
I can't imagine having the mindset that Odessa, Texas high school football fans have. Their happiness and feelings of self-worth are in the hands of a group of teenagers. Is it fair to put this responsibility on them? "Do you even feel 17?" one of the players asks another during a rare moment of leisure as the football season begins. They do not. Fair or unfair, it is the reality in Friday Night Lights, based on Buzz Bissinger's best-selling book depicting the culture of high school football in West Texas. Perhaps it's this way in many other parts of the country as well, which to me is sad, but to those people football represents their only hope at salvaging meaning in their lives.
The enjoyment of playing football has long been sapped from these players, who face relentless pressure from parents, boosters, and the community. They are treated like celebrities and even their August football practices are media events. The third-string running back is interviewed on camera as if he were Emmitt Smith or Barry Sanders. Coach Gary Gaines (Thornton) is beginning his second season and he understands the pressure on him to win even though he doesn't like it. "Be perfect," he tells his team. The players believe this statement to mean go undefeated and win the elusive state championship. It is made clear later what Gaines actually means by that statement.
The Panthers play in a very large stadium which rivals some college stadiums in size. A sign hangs on it commemorating the years the team won the state championship. The last year listed was 1984 and as the film begins in August 1988, that's four years in which the Odessa community has had to endure misery. The stadium is beautiful, meanwhile the rest of the town is in shambles. It's no wonder the economy doesn't seem to grow there: Businesses close whenever there's a big game and proudly put up signs stating, "Gone to the game." Think about this: the players aren't old enough to vote and would otherwise be dismissed as "stupid kids" if they weren't wearing a football jersey. Yet, these same teens are tacitly responsible for the community being able to wake up in the morning with a smile.
I'm doing more judging of this community than Friday Night Lights does. The movie observes this culture without judging it. It doesn't preach and has no easy payoffs. The microcosm of this football worship is displayed in the character of running back Don Billingsley's father, Charles (Tim McGraw). Don fumbles a lot, which enrages his mostly drunk father whose only claim to fame is that he was on an Odessa team that won a state championship. For the father, that win was the highlight of his life. He finds it to be a curse, because nothing he does can top that. He is trying to reclaim a smidgen of happiness through his son. As he puts it, "When you fail, then I've failed."
This is true of many of the people in Friday Night Lights. Coach Gaines repeatedly hears people calling into to radio shows calling for his head after a loss. He takes it with a grain of salt, although the pressure makes his wife half-jokingly consider moving to Alaska. It's powerful when Gaines, even after a tough loss, blows a kiss to his wife in the stands, stating in his subtle way that his family comes first. The same can't be said for most others in this movie.
Friday Night Lights comes down to a Big Game, of course, but who wins and loses doesn't matter as much as the realization that many of those players will likely never play football again and should relish the enjoyment of playing one last time. In the epilogue, only one of the players on the squad received a scholarship to a Divison I school. Most of the players aren't delusional about playing in the NFL, although running back Boogie Miles (Luke) believes his own hype to the point that he thinks he can play with an ACL tear. When he finds out he can't, he breaks down and cries, "Football is all I know. What am I going to do?" What's sad about this is that the players come and go, like interchangeable parts, but the football machine chugs along mercilessly. If you listen to sports talk radio callers, can anyone say this is isn't still the case?
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