SIDELINED: THE QB AND ME
US, 2024, 99 minutes, Colour.
Sienna Agudong, Noah Beck, Drew Ray TannerL James van der Beek, Deborah Cox, Asia Lizardo, Jason Fernandes.
Directed by Justin Wu.
The screenplay is based on a Wattpad novel, the site where one can read and published original material. And, for non-American or non-football fans, caps QB stands for Quarterback!
This is a film aimed at young audiences in their mid to late teens, both male and female. It may not appeal to younger audiences for whom all this is to come. And, for those over high school age, they may feel they have got over this phase of their life.
The film is quite a pleasant experience for the target audience. The setting is High School, a young student, Dallas (Siena and you don) is in her final school, needing points and a good report to go for a dancing audition for the California arts institution. Her mother, a talented dancer, and her father have been killed in an accident. She lives with her brother who is in a assistant coach at the school. She is very close to her best friend, Gaby.
The other central character is the high school Jock, talented football player, Drayton (Noah Beck), attractive to all the girls, plenty of friends, from a very rich family, James Vanderbeek playing his father who insists on his carrying on the high school tradition of the family going to Waco to play football. Later is revealed there is a family tragedy, Drayton’s twin sister, aged eight, wandering off at a picnic, never seen again. There are issues, of course, of responsibility and feelings of guilt.
In the first class, the conversations about Romeo and Juliet and it being tragic – but, any Shakespeare comparison with this film would be Much Ado about nothing, the clash between the two central characters, situations in which they find themselves, she keeping to herself and resenting him, he attracted to her…
The situations are predictable enough. Her dance teacher tells her she is in her head not experiencing feelings, there is an episode where Dallas and Drayton are urged by the coach to spontaneously respond to each other in dance and movement. She agrees to go to a party with Gabby, drinks, is caught in the situation at Creighton’s house. And they are suspended by the principal for Miss behaviour in going to the party.
Drayton comes to the rescue by inviting Dallas to go to California with him during the suspension, she is in admiration of the dances, he has an interview with the local football coaches.
At a birthday party, a blowup, severity from Drayton’s father, leading to some kind of frank talk and reconciliation, Dallas, on the other hand, secluded, preoccupied with the dance, snapping Gabby, but going to the audition and succeeding.
Final reconciliation is all round, Dallas going to California to dance, and, Drayton not telling her, turning up because of his contract with USC.
All the ingredients for mid and later teenagers to respond to.
