Reversal (2001)
Many critics will probably dismiss
this interesting movie as a well-made "Afterschool
Special" because it often seems to have a pedantic
tone. Perhaps such criticism has some validity. But
they're missing some of the bigger picture here. This
is a film that explores an area of the teenage condition
that has rarely been discussed, that of young males
body image.
This isn't, exactly, the focus.
It is, perhaps more accurately, a sideways glance
of the focus. "Reversal" discusses young, teen, male
Anorexia, in the guise of its story about a male high
school wrestler.
The first 10 or 15 minutes of the
film is incredibly engrossing as Jimi Petulla, as
the father of a young boy as well as his wrestling
mentor, begins to instill the formation of troubling
weight issues and eating issues in his pre-pubescent
son, played quite well by Derrick Nelson. In a way,
we wish there was more here because Nelson is a fine
young actor and this part of the story is incredibly
relative to what happens in the plot, but the coverage
is adequate to establish the set-up needed to propel
the rest of the film.
As a teen, played by newcomer Danny
Mousetis, the young wrestler begins to question his
father's instructions and works to determine a fate
all his own. Here Petulla's father and coach can begin
to sound like a one-note record and his perpetual
"don't blow your ride" missive can become a little
annoying. But Mousetis keeps us into the story providing
a character that we sincerely care about. And the
situation is so unique to us, as it focuses on a male
with an eating disorder and a sport, wrestling, that
is hardly as common to Americans as some High School
coaches might like to believe, that we are easily
drawn into the plot.
The acting here is quite nice with
Mousetis a real standout. Petulla, likewise, has some
fine moments. While his father- figure is shown to
often be myopic and wrong-headed, he is also seen
to be loving and inspirational. There's a real discussion
about fatherhood and mentoring going on here and Petulla
provides a character we see as flawed and occasionally
wrong-headed without ever depicting him as evil or
overly strict. He is certainly no monster. There are
subtle shades of gray in the father and son relationship
here and Mousetis and Petulla have a chemistry that
allow these problematic issues to have resonance and
offer insight.
The film never seems maudlin or
melodramatic and the script, although problematic
with its pedantic nature, tells a unique and interesting
story. Director Alan Vint is as adept at exposition
as he is at stylistic touches. And the film has a
real textural feel to it thanks to William H. Molina's
artistic cinematography.
Petulla, who also produces here,
provided the script as well. He purports it, in a
seemingly belated subtitle, to be "based on a true
story." Whether this is his own story or not, I do
not know although it seems highly likely that it is.
The struggle the young protagonist endures here is
as much about his own establishing his own identity
as it is about weight issues and eating disorders.
And it is about time we had a film that seemed to
value and appreciate much of the finer qualities of
high school athletics while also questioning and discuss
the value we place upon it.
Much more than a didactic diatribe
against fathers far too involved in their son's high
school athletic careers, "Reversal" discusses the
myriad layers that such father and son relationships
might entail. And, thankfully, in this instance, it
shows us how the love between a father and son is
perhaps the most important layer of them all.
Note:
Music by Jeff Danna. Don Dokken
does a cover of Alice Cooper's "Eighteen" on the soundtrack.
