First of
all, Friday Night Lights is a great sports movie. It has everything
you expect from a film in this genre: an appealing—albeit motley—bunch of
players, each with his own hopes and inner conflicts; a seemingly
insurmountable obstacle for the team to overcome during the upcoming
season; a coach who drives them hard but who really has a heart of gold; and
tons of bone-crunching action that looks as if it came from a ten-year “best
of” sports highlight reel. Films like Hoosiers, Remember the
Titans, and Miracle set the stage for this genre, but Friday
Night Lights has stolen the show.
But Friday
Night Lights is more than just a great sports movie; it is a great
movie—period. In fact, I would almost say it is a “perfect” film. You’ll have
to watch it to know exactly what I mean by that, but it has everything to do
with quality. The acting, the directing, the lighting, the script, the camera
that won’t stop moving—I could burn through a phone book of superlatives in
every one of these areas. More importantly, however, I loved this film because
it does exactly what all movies should do: It makes viewers feel
something, perhaps more powerfully than they have ever felt it before. In this
case, the overwhelming feeling is one of inspiration. Friday Night
Lights compels you to examine your life, to make sure you haven’t
lost track of why you are living it, and to refocus on doing your best, on
striving toward achieving something extraordinary. Although sports is the
central metaphor, Friday Night Lights is really about
what it means to be human, the things that get in the way of that pursuit, and
how those thing might be overcome.
Hell is
a small town in this film, and its name is Odessa, Texas. The only means of
salvation are to get out (if you’re smart enough or rich enough) or to make it
big playing football. Since few people are able to do either one, most resign
themselves to “memories and babies” and spend the rest of their lives reflecting
on the glory days while living out their vanquished dreams through the local
high school football team. Having failed to achieve anything of consequence
themselves, they feel their only hope for significance is for the Permian
Panthers to have a winning season. And they will do everything they can to
ensure that happens. As a Canadian, I’ve always wondered why small town America
is so obsessed with high school football. This film gave me at least a partial
answer as to why.
As you
can imagine, such expectations put an enormous amount of pressure on the young
men who make up this team. For most of the guys, football ceased to be about
fun a long time ago. Coach Gary Gaines wears his role like a death sentence, at
one point telling his guys, “You have the responsibility of protecting this
team and this school and this town.” Whew. Anyone up for a little two-hand
touch? Consequently, the upcoming season isn’t really something to look forward
to; it’s just something to endure, to survive. If the Panthers win State, then
the pressure is off. If not, well, as one of the team’s boosters tells Gaines,
“Things won’t go well for you.” Despite the pressure, it’s obvious that Gaines
and his boys really do love the game. If only people would leave them alone
long enough so they could relax and enjoy the experience. Who knows? Perhaps
they might even become a better team as a result.
The
pressure to perform affects each character differently. Gaines is more
disappointed than intimidated by the constant harassment and abuse. He seems to
be operating from a set of inner convictions that few other characters in this
film possess. Quarterback Mike Winchell is another story. Driven by a
football-obsessed mother at home and a fan base that celebrates him one moment
and then vilifies him the next, his every look and mannerism tells you he just
can’t wait for this show to be over. Then there’s Boobie Miles, the NFL-bound
star who blows his chance at the big-time for a shot at small-town glory.
Finally, you have Don Billingsly. He’s so wound up most of the time due to his
abusive, former State Champion father that he can’t even hold onto the
football. Indeed, whatever dysfunctions are present in Odessa, they all
manifest themselves in this football team in one way or another. And it’s all
the players can do just to hold things together.
At one
point, Coach Gaines senses Winchell is about to crack, so he decides it’s time
for a little “man-to-man” with his quarterback. During their conversation,
Coach Gaines tells Winchell that he is old enough by now to realize that
sometimes life gives you the short end of the stick. The question is: What are
we going to do about it? Will we allow it to define the rest of our lives, as
some characters in this film do, or are we going to find some way to overcome
it? For Gaines, it all comes down to where you find your identity. On what will
you base your life? Winning? That didn’t work so well for people like Don
Billingsly’s dad. When his team won State, he was the centre of everyone’s
hopes and dreams. But when the season ended, he was faced with the glaring
question: What do you do when the cheering stops? By the time we meet him, he
is still trying to find a satisfactory answer to that problem, one that goes
beyond self-medication, that is.
So if
not winning, then what? Coach Gaines’s answer sounds frustrating at first:
Perfection. By this, however, he does not mean flawlessness. To him, perfection
means knowing that you did your best, knowing that there wasn’t one more thing
you could have done to achieve your objective. It means having love and joy in
your heart for your fellow players and your fellow man. For Gaines, true
victory is a victory of character. It’s not whether you win or lose or even how
you play the game. It’s about who you become as a result.
Interestingly, Jesus made a
similar entreaty to his disciples: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly
Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). I’ve always found this verse somewhat
frustrating as well. Who can be perfect? Doesn’t the mere attempt just lead to
striving and guilt? But when you look at it the way Coach Gaines does, suddenly
it makes “perfect” sense. Jesus isn’t saying that life—being human—is about
being the best. It’s not even about performing "your own personal best."
It’s about allowing the challenges you face to mold you into the best person
you can be.
This is
accomplished not through striving or guilt but by inviting God to manifest his
perfect character through you during such circumstances. “We all dig our own
holes,” says Gaines. If so, then perhaps yielding to this sort of perfection is
the key to digging our way out.