Click here for the interview with Cheech Marin (12:55)
When going for the heart, there is a tricky line for a film to walk between earnest sweetness and syrupy schmaltz. THE PERFECT GAME pulls off this balancing act with a combination of smart direction and even smarter casting. That’s no small achievement considering the story, based on actual events, concerns a gaggle of appealing waifs from Monterrey attempting to become the first Mexican team to win the Little League World Series.
It’s 1957, so poverty isn’t the only thing working against these kids, nor against their reluctant coach, foundry worker Cesar (Clifton Collins, Jr.). He’s back in his parents’ hometown after being passed over for a promotion with the St Louis Cardinals for reasons racial rather than talent. Cesar finds a purpose when he’s cajoled into teaching the local kids baseball by the parish priest, Padre Esteban (a cherubic Cheech Marin), and the determination of Angel (Jake T. Austin), who was passed over for his father’s love when his older brother Pedro died.
The plot follows the usual tropes, but executes them with sensitivity and refreshing lack of cliches. The kids are children, not automatons reciting dialogue written to approximate which kids sound like. Theirs is a world where baseball is more than just a game, it’s an identity that lets them compete with the rich kids from the city, and where divine miracles are a distinct possibility. There is nothing precious when Angel comes across his first real baseball, instead of the makeshift ones fabricated by Padre Esteban, he naturally assumes that “St Louis” is the name of the saint who dropped it from heaven, not something lost in a drunken walkabout by Cesar.
Both poverty and racism are a tangible element of the story, dealt with in a straightforward, but tempered manner as a fact, but not the center of the kids’ lives. It’s an approach that does nothing to undercut the sting of either one. Nor does it make the situation something insurmountable, only difficult. When there is no bus to take them from the Texas border to their first game, Cesar, without missing a beat tells the border guard that these kids are used to walking 10 miles. Instead of pity, there is a sense of justifiable pride in what they can accomplish on and off the field. Then there’s the fact that the kids are smaller than their American counterparts can still best them. There is never a moment when these kids suffer self-pity, only determination and a sense of accomplishment hard-won and divinely blessed.
That pride is effectively echoed in a plot device that is not as klunky as it sounds. That would be the Frankie (Emilie de Ravin), the small-town newspaper reporter assigned to cover the first competition game the kids play despite her antipathy towards the sport. She comes around, not just because those kids are so darn cute, they are, but also because of the larger story. She gets caught up in the larger story, writing not just because those kids are so darn cute and so darn determined and so darn talented, but also because she senses that the real story, and her ticket to success, is not the scores and the play-by-play, but rather the reaction of white America to a Mexican team playing the all-American pastime better than the home teams. Bringing things even closer to home is the reaction of a groundskeeper (Louis Gossett, Jr.), who has his own history of being passed over that is not unlike Cesar’s.
Though the running time may be a little long for younger kids, the writing, which emphasizes the personal relationships that do and don’t work. There is a sweet courtship between Cesar and a local beauty that has its problems, many of them worked out by 12-year-old Mario (Moises Arrias), the teams worst player, but best ladies man, and another, more serious one between Cesar and Padre Esteban, who teaches him the value of hope without ever once lapsing into a sermon. This is squarely aimed at the family market, with distinct, but not oppressively religious overtones. Instead, of overt preaching, it emphasizes community over doctrine, and baseball as a valid way to celebrate, and as a mechanism that, with its own momentum, sets things in motion to spark social change.
When going for the heart, there is a tricky line for a film to walk between earnest sweetness and syrupy schmaltz. THE PERFECT GAME pulls off this balancing act with a combination of smart direction and even smarter casting. That’s no small achievement considering the story, based on actual events, concerns a gaggle of appealing waifs from Monterrey attempting to become the first Mexican team to win the Little League World Series.
It’s 1957, so poverty isn’t the only thing working against these kids, nor against their reluctant coach, foundry worker Cesar (Clifton Collins, Jr.). He’s back in his parents’ hometown after being passed over for a promotion with the St Louis Cardinals for reasons racial rather than talent. Cesar finds a purpose when he’s cajoled into teaching the local kids baseball by the parish priest, Padre Esteban (a cherubic Cheech Marin), and the determination of Angel (Jake T. Austin), who was passed over for his father’s love when his older brother Pedro died.
The plot follows the usual tropes, but executes them with sensitivity and refreshing lack of cliches. The kids are children, not automatons reciting dialogue written to approximate which kids sound like. Theirs is a world where baseball is more than just a game, it’s an identity that lets them compete with the rich kids from the city, and where divine miracles are a distinct possibility. There is nothing precious when Angel comes across his first real baseball, instead of the makeshift ones fabricated by Padre Esteban, he naturally assumes that “St Louis” is the name of the saint who dropped it from heaven, not something lost in a drunken walkabout by Cesar.
Both poverty and racism are a tangible element of the story, dealt with in a straightforward, but tempered manner as a fact, but not the center of the kids’ lives. It’s an approach that does nothing to undercut the sting of either one. Nor does it make the situation something insurmountable, only difficult. When there is no bus to take them from the Texas border to their first game, Cesar, without missing a beat tells the border guard that these kids are used to walking 10 miles. Instead of pity, there is a sense of justifiable pride in what they can accomplish on and off the field. Then there’s the fact that the kids are smaller than their American counterparts can still best them. There is never a moment when these kids suffer self-pity, only determination and a sense of accomplishment hard-won and divinely blessed.
That pride is effectively echoed in a plot device that is not as klunky as it sounds. That would be the Frankie (Emilie de Ravin), the small-town newspaper reporter assigned to cover the first competition game the kids play despite her antipathy towards the sport. She comes around, not just because those kids are so darn cute, they are, but also because of the larger story. She gets caught up in the larger story, writing not just because those kids are so darn cute and so darn determined and so darn talented, but also because she senses that the real story, and her ticket to success, is not the scores and the play-by-play, but rather the reaction of white America to a Mexican team playing the all-American pastime better than the home teams. Bringing things even closer to home is the reaction of a groundskeeper (Louis Gossett, Jr.), who has his own history of being passed over that is not unlike Cesar’s.
Though the running time may be a little long for younger kids, the writing, which emphasizes the personal relationships that do and don’t work. There is a sweet courtship between Cesar and a local beauty that has its problems, many of them worked out by 12-year-old Mario (Moises Arrias), the teams worst player, but best ladies man, and another, more serious one between Cesar and Padre Esteban, who teaches him the value of hope without ever once lapsing into a sermon. This is squarely aimed at the family market, with distinct, but not oppressively religious overtones. Instead, of overt preaching, it emphasizes community over doctrine, and baseball as a valid way to celebrate, and as a mechanism that, with its own momentum, sets things in motion to spark social change. No droning sermon this, instead it’s a rousing celebration that can bring an audience cheering to its feet while wiping a tear from its collective eye.
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