"We Are Marshall" and Catharsis

Rating: 10/10 (21 October 2007)

"We Are Marshall," which concerns Marshall University's struggle to deal with the 1970 plane crash which claimed the lives of the entire varsity football team and their supporters, reflects on and is a cathartic experience, and is most enjoyable.
After the crash, Marshall is left with a question: Should we even continue to have a football program? University president Don Dedmon (reliable David Strathairn) believes no, and cancels it. However, a few of the surviving varsity players who were not on the plane, in particular Nate Griffin, refuse to accept this. Although Griffin's stance is admirable, even he has a lesson to learn--he must deal with his grief.
Catharsis is the process by which one releases suppressed feelings or emotions, and the entire town has to achieve this catharsis--of their grief over the crash--before they can truly move on. One of the surviving veteran players simply cannot play football because he felt he should have been on the plane; a father of a killed player (Ian McShane) refuses to let his late son's fiancée move on by her giving back her engagement ring; and the aforementioned Griffin, who feels that he must go above and beyond in his efforts for the new team because he feels that the late team "left it in his hands." But in being led by Jack Lengyel (Matthew McConaghey), the town and the new team discover that you honor a team by continuing the tradition, and that by doing so, you find the strength to move on, to persevere, especially since the town invested so much emotional stock in the university and the team.
I definitely recommend "We Are Marshall."