In Rez Ball, a down-on-their-luck basketball team from the Navajo Nation must overcome loss and their own doubts to prove themselves in the state championships. But they have a secret weapon that could just make the difference between becoming winners or losing their heritage.
Rez Ball
Sydney Freeland (director and writer), Sterlin Harjo (writer), Kira Kelly (cinematography), Jessica Baclesse (editor)
Jessica Matten, Kauchani Bratt, Amber Midthunder, Cody Lightning, Dallas Goldtooth, Ernest David Tsosie, Kusem Goodwind, Zoey Reyes, Julia Jones (cast)
September 8, 2024 (TIFF)
Content advisory: contains themes of suicide
Coach Heather Hobbs (Jessica Matten) isn’t in the easiest of positions in Rez Ball. She’s the female coach of the second-seed basketball team, the Chuska Warriors. The team has been on the ascendancy, largely in part due to their star player Nataanii Jackson’s (Kusem Goodwind) height and versatility. But before the start of a major game against first seed Santa Fe Coyotes, Nataanii fails to show for the game, putting his best friend Jimmy Holiday (Kauchani Bratt) in the position to lead the team. While Nataanii and Jimmy are the Batman and Robin of their team, on his own, Jimmy struggles to deliver the goods. When the team learn that Nataanii is gone, they are left in complete disarray. It’s up to coach Hobbs to fight the misogyny and racism of the basketball world and inspire Jimmy and the team to fight for the ones they’ve lost.
I don’t have the most pleasant memories of basketball. At school, balls were just thrown at us, and we were expected to magically know what to do with them. I didn’t grow up with any fondness for the sport, though I have watched it from time to time and will root for my now-home team the Raptors. Fortunately, my lack of love for basketball didn’t impact my enjoyment of Rez Ball, whose world premiere I caught at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Sports films keep me at the edge of my seat, even if it’s a game as alien to me as ski-jumping or bob-sledding. I love sports films because of the excitement, the tension, the agony of failure, and the ecstasy of success.
Rez Ball absolutely delivers on all those counts. One could say, it rides on the tropes of the sports film genre. But here’s what makes this film a unique experience. It’s the lens that this film uses to tell its story. Based on true events, Rez Ball isn’t just a sports story; it’s a Native American sports story. This film is unlike any other sports film because it’s based on the lived experiences of the Native American people who made this film. If there’s ever been a better case for creating stories based on lived experiences, Rez Ball is it.
This film uses a very clever, emotional technique to put the audience in the shoes of the Navajo characters. Rez Ball starts with Nataanii’s point of view. He’s 18, his whole life is in front of him. But he’s suffering from tremendous loss—half his family is gone because of a drunk driver. Basketball keeps him going—and the film opens with glorious shots of Nataanii flying through the air, shooting hoops with precision, his long braids encircling his head. This is a boy with a future, a bright future. He can make something of himself and for his reservation. And then, in the blink of an eye, Nataanii is gone. The film shifts from his point of view to Jimmy’s and coach Hobbs’. I’ve never seen a film use point-of-view so effectively to demonstrate how quickly the world changes when you lose someone. In a mere moment, a young life is gone because the world was too unjust for him to continue living in it. When I tell you the entire theatre was bawling, I’m not exaggerating. I’ve never heard so much not-so-silent weeping in a cinema hall before.
The handling of Nataanii’s storyline isn’t the only area where Rez Ball deviates from standard sports fare. This isn’t a rags-to-riches tale. The Chuska Warriors start the film near the top. But for most of the film, they are a disorganized, grieving mess, unable to communicate with each other to play well, let alone win. Coach Hobbs gets creative to make her team gel better together. Using her mentorship as a foundation, Jimmy makes an effort to connect with his heritage—he’s one of the few players on the team that doesn’t speak Navajo. The team’s shared heritage and a return to their traditions set the Warriors on the right path.
But they still need to overcome their own personal battles to do their best. For Coach Hobbs, it’s the endless rejection letters for coaching opportunities outside the reservation, because she isn’t seen as a ‘professional coach,’ and a romantic breakup she was not prepared for. Jimmy, on the other hand, has to navigate his mother, Gloria (Julia Jones), a woman at her self-destructive best on a good day. At a time when Jimmy desperately needs hope, Gloria brings him nothing but desolation. Rez Ball shows the audience why–she’s a woman who’s seen so much death that she’s accepted it as inevitable. But that is not what Jimmy needs from his mother. This mother-son dynamic added more depth to the film and raised the stakes for Jimmy–he essentially had nobody but his coach and team to rely on for moral support. I do love that Gloria gets her own storyline, despite being such a harbinger of doom and gloom to the protagonist’s life. A sports film can only ride on the highs and lows of sports for so long. There have to be human stories amongst the dribbling balls to keep viewers engaged.
Those human stories are only as strong as the actors who bring them to life. I was quite blown away with the performances in Rez Ball. When writer-director Sydney Freeland spoke to the TIFF audience during the Q&A, she mentioned the amount of interest for the roles in Rez Ball, which is not surprising when the casting announcement said it was a Netflix film produced by LeBron James. There were 5000 applicants for the 10 roles they had for this film. Freeland very specifically asked for actors to send videos of them playing basketball because the actors had to play basketball in the film; there would be no stunt doubles. Hats off to the casting director, because everyone in the film looks like a natural baller. It makes a huge difference when the actors are playing the sport themselves–the camera can stay on them for the entire duration of the shot, making for a more immersive audience experience.
What really surprised me was learning that this is the first acting role for Kauchani Bratt. Aside from a couple of early scenes, where I didn’t think he got the tone right, when the focus of the film shifted to Jimmy, Bratt was completely in charge. What a strong start for what I hope will be a long career.
Canada’s own Jessica Matten makes the role of inspirational leader her own. An activist for Indigenous rights in real life, she brings that passion to her performance as Coach Hobbs. At the after-screening Q&A, Matten said that women are constantly underestimated in the world and those experiences influenced her performance as Hobbs. Unlike the bombastic coaches of many sports films, Matten brings a measured and gentle touch to her role. More of a ‘I’m not angry, I’m disappointed’ vibe. Which, we can all agree, is far more terrifying than being yelled at.
Rez Ball hit all the right notes for me, and while it didn’t subvert my expectations for a sports film; by dint of it being a story about Rez ball, not just basketball, the film brought in a unique perspective that made me fall in love with it. The film also has a solid soundtrack. A sports montage set to L’il Nas X’s ‘Industry Baby’? Yes, please! Great music, a tightly-woven narrative, and a strong interplay between human emotions and the excitement of sports made this one of the best films I’ve seen so far this year. Highly recommend watching this film the moment it releases on Netflix.
