BEFORE: Well, sometimes I feel the need to fast-track a film, and to prove that, I've watched 14 films this year with release dates of 2024. "Deadpool & Wolverine", of course, was out in theaters, so there was some urgency there, and the linking happened to allow it. But the documentaries about Jim Henson and the Beach Boys were brand new, too, and streaming made it possible to include them at the last minute. "Unfrosted" caught my attention, and I also got really lucky with "Rebel Moon" that just as I was getting set to watch Part 1, Part 2 got released on Netflix. "LIft" came out in January, and I did a Kevin Hart chain a few months later, and "The Beekeeper" also came out that month, and it slid nicely into the Jason Statham chain seven months later.
This film, well, it's not like that. It came out in 2015 and I ignored it for several years, then finally it came to streaming and I ignored it then, too - I think it was on Hulu for a good long time, but not long enough, because when I finally got around to it, it was gone, and now it's really nowhere, except on iTunes and cable on demand for $3.99. And who knows, I may eventually pay that to put it on DVD, but let me watch it today on my free "pirate" site and see if it's worth the money. I've been on a tear lately getting stuff on demand to put on DVD, and those $3.99 charges are starting to add up.
But yeah, maybe this is exactly the kind of movie you watch when you've been watching films almost daily for 16 years. Cecily Strong carries over from "Leo".
THE PLOT: A foul-mouthed former gymnastics bronze medalist with local celebrity status reluctantly trains a rising Olympics aspirant.
AFTER: There was a summer Olympics this year, if I remember right, and I wasn't able to come up with a movie tie-in at the time, I think MAYBE I watched that documentary about Billie Jean King during the Olympics, and she was a U.S. team tennis coach, but that's a bit of a stretch. And "Next Goal Wins" wasn't about Olympic soccer but the World Cup trials, so that doesn't count. Still, I've watched maybe a dozen films this year about sports, just nothing that would tie-in direct with those Olympics.
But look, I don't really know what to DO with the character I've been given here, I mean, the first rule of telling a story is to have a central character that people can root for, and it feels like someone went out of their way to make the main character very unlikable, and how am I supposed to root for her if I don't even LIKE her? She's so obnoxious that I don't care what happens to her, whether she succeeds or not.
Look, I get it, writing is all about contrasts, and young, cute gymnasts are supposed to fall immediately into the "Likable" category, like they're all America's sweethearts, like Mary Lou Retton or Kerri Strug or some of the real gymnasts who had cameos in this film. Clearly some screenwriter thought along the lines of "What if you met Mary Lou Retton in real life and she was a real jerk?" She may be, I don't know, but it sure seems unlikely. So this fictional gymnast, Hope Ann Greggory, who won a bronze medal at "Rome 2004" (the Olympics weren't in Rome that year, though, I checked) but has since fallen on hard times and she just hangs around her home-town of Athens, Ohio, aimlessly getting free lunch from the food court in the mall and also stealing money out of her father's postal truck. NITPICK POINT: Sure, anything that looks like a birthday card from Grandma might have cash inside, but who sends MONEY through the mail any more? Who even mails anything any more? Oh, right, this film is from 2015, before Zelle and Venmo.
Any attempts by her father to get Hope Ann to stop stealing, get a job, take some responsibility for her post-gymnastic, post-injury career and stop living off her old glory just results in her pulling the "But Mom died when I was five months old" card and then just falling back into her usual routine.
There's a new, up-and-coming gymnast also training in her hometown, at her old gym, and when her old trainer suddenly dies, her father reads her a letter promising Hope Ann $500,000 if she will take over the training of "Mighty" Maggie Townsend and help her qualify for the gymnastics event in Toronto. Hope Ann takes the gig, but before long we realize that she's taken the job JUST to sabotage Maggie's training, and she lets her eat the wrong foods and gets her high and it's a bit too long before Hope Ann realizes that if she keeps going this way, Maggie won't qualify and she won't inherit the money. It sure SEEMED like she understood the terms of the deal, but perhaps she's not as smart as we think. Or too smart, or something.
There's a budding romance with Ben, aka "Twitchy" who runs the gym and also helps with Maggie's training, but Hope Ann nearly blows that when she sleeps with the man in charge of training the U.S. team, and it's the guy who took her virginity back in the day. With what we know now about gymnastics trainers and team doctors and some of them preying on the young girls who want to make the team, really, this plotline did NOT age well. Any time a man in a position of power uses that to get sex, it's very wrong, and so I'm not exactly sure why Hope Ann got drawn back into his web, because it sure seemed like she hated him earlier in the movie. Perhaps it's the seductive lure of sex with another gymnast, and there is a scene that shows just how wild that could be. For fans of "The Big Bang Theory", sure, it might fulfill some kind of sex fantasy because Melissa Rauch's character on that show was so sweet and innocent and naive, but come on, they clearly used a body double, I can tell that just from the way it's edited, how you never see her face and nude body in the same shot. Sorry, Big Bang fans.
She now plays a naive and optimistic judge on the reboot of "Night Court", the daughter of Judge Harry Stone, played by Harry Anderson in the first series. I have to say, I much prefer her playing the innocent types, hearing her swear like a trucker and go from being aimless and nasty to being focused and nasty doesn't really constitute much of a character arc for me. I only hated Hope Ann slightly less by the end of the movie, and again, I don't really see the point in creating a main character who is so darn unlikable.
I also can't believe this movie was produced by the Duplass Brothers, it doesn't feel like one of theirs at all. I thought they were all about mumblecore and awkward relationships situations, like "Cyrus" or "Jeff, Who Lives at Home" and this just doesn't seem to fit into their oeuvre. If anything it feels more like a Farrelly Brothers film, something more like "Kingpin" only not as outrageous, does that make sense? Only this film premiered at the Sundance Festival in 2015, and I think the Duplass Brothers are kind of like the Kings of Sundance, so that, at least, tracks.
Also starring Melissa Rauch (last seen in "Ode to Joy"), Gary Cole (last heard in "Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe"), Thomas Middleditch (last heard in DC League of Super-Pets"), Sebastian Stan (last seen in "Dumb Money"), Haley Lu Richardson (last seen in "Operation Finale"), Dale Raoul (last seen in "Beautiful"), Craig Kilborn (last seen in "Robert Klein Still Can't Stop His Leg"), Dominique Dawes, Olga Korbut, Dominique Moceanu, Barak Hardley (last seen in "A Merry Friggin' Christmas"), Michael Shamus Wiles (last seen in "Lost Highway"), Christine Abrahamsen, Ellery Sprayberry (last seen in "Wakefield"), Kathryn Ding, Kyle Carthens, Mark Mazzocco, John Thobaben, Brian Binder, Stephanie Bertoni, Chris Van Vliet, Dave Durch, Olivia Macrae, Reese Garber, Thomas C. Butcher, Kathie Dice, David Gregg, Sherry Hudak, Ben Rauch (last seen in "Can You Ever Forgive Me?").
RATING: 4 out of 10 grilled cheese sandwiches (with the crusts cut off)
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