An Instant Underdog Sports Classic Made in Disney's Provocative Style

Rating: 8/10 (21 July 2017)

McFarland, USA is a city in California that to this day has a sizable Hispanic population, many of whom work as migrant farm workers picking crops. "McFarland" is a film that tells the story of Coach White, a passionate coach who gets fired from his football coaching gig at a wealthy high school when he escalates a fight between him and his players to violence. The wealthy high school football players seemed more concerned about the after party than the game. Athletics for these players is a prestige thing that has nothing to do with sportsmanship. After a series of disrespectful actions, Coach White snaps and subsequently gets fired. But as Coach White reflects later to another coach when he arrives at his new school, "It's not the fight in the dog coach, it's the dog in the fight...depends on the size of the dog...".
Coach White moves to Cliff Avenue in a Hispanic neighborhood with his wife and two daughters. When he first arrives in the new neighborhood, one of his daughters questions if the family had ended up in Mexico. The Whites struggle at first to fit into their new neighborhood. Meanwhile, the high school students in the small Hispanic town of McFarland have their own struggle. Most of the students at MacFarland have jobs. Athletics isn't even an option for many of them because they come from the fields to go to school and run back to the fields when class gets outs. Many become adults in those very fields. Unless a prison gets to them first. It is a hard life which stands in stark contrast to the lives of Coach White's previous students. He begins to see the athletic potential in his hardworking students and questions the temporary nature of his transitory job as coach at MacFarland.
In the classic Disney fashion, Coach White's new community welcomes him. His neighbor even plants him a tree and tells him, "in five years senor you're going to have some nice shade". The simple transitions in the film show the migrant worker's lives with Hispanic music in the background. The scenes are poetic. But the most beautiful part of the film is the raw determination of the high school students trying to compete in a sport and environment that sets them up for failure. A boy named Thomas Valles becomes a de facto leader of the team after Coach White catches the high school student running at 12 miles an hour. This same boy shows up to practice with bruises because he gets his dad to punch him instead of a wall since as a migrant worker his father needs his hands to work. It isn't until coach White works a whole day as a migrant worker himself, picking crops getting paid by the field instead of by the hour that he begins to understand the plight of his athletes.
In the spirit of Stand and Deliver Coach White understands that he needs to go beyond his position as coach for these students. He begins to treat them like his own. During one scene, he rushes to a park without enough money for the entrance fee and tells the officer, "I've got five dollars and seven kids who have never seen the ocean". He brings his students to the beach.
Eventually, McFarland becomes more than a temporary home for Coach White and his family. It becomes their community, one which adopts them as warmly as they adopted it. The family moments such as the father's speech at his daughters quinceañera will tug at your heartstrings. Coach White disproves Thomas Valles' initial belief that, "Nobody stays in McFarland unless they have to. Because there is nothing American dream about this place". This film is based off a true story and Coach White ended up at McFarland coaching at the town's high school long after better prospects opened up for him. By the end, Coach White recognizes that these kids at McFarland cherish cross country and athletics, something he admits is a privilege many take for granted.