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42 (2013)
In a sentence: The story of Jackie Robinson, the first black player in Major League Baseball.
My favorite part of the Jackie Robinson story has always been how pragmatically it unfolded. It's the closest thing sports has to a fairy tale, and because of that it has a Hallmarkian quality, a Vaseline-smudged-on-the-lens feeling in its recounting. This is true of many historical events, but this one happened just late enough, and was just well-documented enough, that we can see the distinctions between the legend and the messy, realpolitik way it happened.
This was not the story of some perfect golden boy destined to break the color barrier. It's a story of calculation, anger, and steely resolve. We have a way of looking back on righteous causes as if they were inevitable, destined to succeed. We give D-Day the same treatment, but this operation, like that one, was the result of incessant planning and consideration.
The first thing to understand about breaking baseball's color barrier is this: good enough wasn't good enough. There were many Negro League players with the skill and talent to excel in the majors, and many more good enough to at least contribute. Unfortunately, we'll never know exactly how many. But most of them would've been poor candidates to become the first over the wall. Caesar's Wife must be beyond reproach, and the first black ballplayer in the majors must not only belong there on merit, but clearly belong there. He must be undeniably contributing to the team's chances of winning, and he must rise above the resistance he'll meet with grace and dignity.
All potentially legitimate objections must be eradicated, so that only the illegitimate remain. This is how you break barriers, by denying bigotry anything with which to cover itself. His being black must be the only thing people object to. It must be an isolated variable.
That's how you get Robinson. Tremendous fielder, great hitter, superb baserunner. And then all the things that aren't about baseball: a young man, about to be married. A veteran. Instances of civil disobedience...but not too much. Just enough to let them know he's a fighter, but the kind that can pull his punches.
Oh, who's "them"? Among others, Branch Rickey. Most of the specifics of how this unfolded were not inevitable, could have been otherwise, but it's hard to imagine anyone other than Rickey orchestrating this. He was and is widely recognized as one of the shrewdest and gutsiest general managers in baseball history. The kind of guy that's smarter than others, and knows it.
He bonds with Robinson over the fact that they're both Methodists, a commonality which transcends their race and which he draws on for personal strength; to power his fiery rebuke of others, and to buttress Robinson in his darkest moments. A lesser, made-for-TV-style film would've made Rickey a footnote, but 42 is smarter than that. In the same way Robinson, as a player and person, had to be beyond reproach, only a general manager as respected and established as Rickey was in a position to finally do what needed to be done.
One thing 42 has to contend with is the formulaic nature of these things, sometimes from reality itself and sometimes made inevitable by the mere act of retelling. Even if you've never heard this story, you can probably imagine most of the beats. People will be mad and not want to give him a chance. He'll be good anyway. He'll suffer adversity. At least one opposing player or manager will goad him. Some of his teammates will shun him, others will rally around, and at least one will start in the former camp and end up in the latter, won over by his bravery and/or skill and/or status as the protagonist. And yeah, all that happens.
But a lot of it's just...what happened. There's one moment in particular (that I believe the film changed the sequencing of for narrative purposes) that seems made up, where star shortstop Pee Wee Reese (you've gotta love old-timey baseball names) comes out and stands next to Robinson on the field as he's met with boos. This, famously, actually took place, even though it seems contrived to the point of being emotionally manipulative. But that's the thing about stories, isn't it? To remind you that these things are possible. We've come full circle: amazing things happen, people tell stories about them, people keep telling stories to remind you they can happen again...and then they happen again, in part because the people responsible grew up on those stories.
42 doesn't break any new ground, even though 42 did. It is predictable and formulaic in the best way. Some kid is going to see this and persevere through something. Another kid is going to see it and realize how important it is to stand by people through their trials. And the cycle begins anew.
"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."
How's the Baseball?
Very good. Yes, we still have a child explaining to his mother why such-and-such happened. We still need surrogates like that explaining to the audience anything remotely subtle about the game, a surefire signal that the film has aspirations that its audience will expand well beyond fans. But it's rare, and it excellently represents the speed and violence of the game. Slides are dirty and hard. The ball whizzes into the batter's box, buzzes in on throws from the outfield. It flies off the bat. In the way a good racing film conveys the speed of the cars, 42 conveys the speed of the game. And how vulnerable you are standing in that batter's box.
Do They Win?
The question hardly makes sense in this context (what fool wrote it?), but: yes. The Dodgers win the pennant, Jackie Robinson perseveres and is honored, not just now, not just much later, but in shocking proximity to the tribulations he went through. He is inducted into the Hall of Fame, wins an award created essentially for him (Rookie of the Year), and is the only player in MLB history to have his number retired leaguewide.
It's a real life fairy tale, after all. You know how it ends. But behind the curtain there's rope and rigging and bags of sand, and stagehands scurrying around to support the man out on the stage, the one whose job it is to suffer slings and arrows and tomatoes. And that man has to be risking something, has to have an otherwise real future, put at risk by being out there. Looking the dragon in the eye, holding a sword he never uses.
So I can't really comment on Yoda's ratings directly but I do have a question for Yoda. Is a an average movie or above average in your mind? I ask because I think us MoFos sometimes view the popcorn ratings differently than the next person.