Invictus for the rest of us

These are some of the greatest sport's films to come out of Hollywood in the last 20 years:
Hoosiers
A League of Their Own
Bull Durham
The Replacements

They are great because they make the sport and the athletes accessible to moviegoers. Whether we play basketball, baseball or football, we can appreciate the fundamentals of sports--teamwork, hard work, leadership, fair play...the fundamentals of life. And at the same time, we can relate to the characters--their idiosyncrasies, triumphs, flaws...their humanity.

Even if the team loses, as it does in A League of Their Own, or the players don't get the glory, as is the story of The Replacements, we leave those movies feeling good because we understand that sometimes in life, no matter how hard you work, how many dues you pay or how much you deserve the reward, sometimes, we may not get the brass ring. We leave those movies feeling good because we empathize with characters, their athleticism, their passion, and their struggle to be as good at home as they are on the field and their realization that there is life beyond the field/court probably never be as good as when they're playing.

This is one of the areas where Invictus falls short. Though we (Americans) may not understand rugby, we can understand the fundamentals of sports. Mr. Eastwood does share some of this with us. What we miss is the player's humanity; we don't know what makes them tick. Francois Pienaar, Matt Damon's character, grew up in apartheid South Africa, why is he portrayed as an enlightened egalitarian? Is that realistic, especially considering that his father and teammates were played as pro-apartheid? How does the lone Black player feel about what is going on and how do his teammates feel about him?

This is the part of the post where I acknowledge Invictus is more than just a sports movie. It is supposed to be a movie about the beginning of Mandela's presidency, a nation's reconciliation and how love of country triumphed over all. This premise doesn't work for me. It is going to take a lot more than winning a rugby tournament to heal the deep-seeded, inbred wounds and scars of apartheid. As a Black woman born seven months after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, I know all to well that it takes decades, even generations to move past systemic segregation.

The movie could have been much richer, digging into the life of a man recently released from prison, thrust into the world spotlight and elected to lead a nation on the verge of imploding. Mr. Eastwood even hinted at some of these themes and left us wanting more about Mandela's family, his leadership style and his relationships with those closest to him. I wanted to more about Pienaar's life too. Regretfully, none of these themes were explored.

In the end, I enjoyed the movie, but I wanted to love the movie. I wanted it to be in my Top Ten.