There is something inarguably captivating about observing a professional pour the whole of their mind, body, and spirit into their chosen craft with reckless abandon. In these hyper-focused explorations of where natural talent meets self-destructive ambition such as Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash and Lauren Hadaway’s The Novice, the meticulous manner in which they lay bare the physical and mental sacrifices that come with the desire to be the best in your field has a way of just grabbing ahold of a captive audience. Cheerleading may not be a pursuit that immediately comes to mind when you think of these types of dramatic portraits of toxic aspiration, but that’s probably because part of the artform is masking the raw physicality of it all. In one of the many scenes of intensive cheer practice D.W. Waterson’s Backspot revels in, ruthless head coach Eileen (Evan Rachel Wood) chews out one of her teenage initiates for letting the physical strain cross her face and failing to “make it look effortless.” In Waterson’s amending portrayal of the cutthroat world of competitive cheerleading, success requires poise, strength, acuity, and the impression that none of the work is getting to you.
It’s a lot to ask of a high school student, but Riley (Devery Jacobs) wants it more than anyone. Called up into Eileen’s elite cheer squad “The Thunderhawks” with girlfriend Amanda (Kudakwashe Rutendo) and teammate Rachel (Noa Diberto), Riley places herself under an immense pressure to succeed and impress upon the team she is worthy of the position she has earned. The grueling practice schedule and demanding expectations, of course, takes its toll on her team; blood is spilled, bones are broken, breakdowns are frequent, and Riley even develops a tic of pulling out her eyebrows to deal with the crushing stress. Unbeknownst to her frequently absentee mother (Shannyn Sossamon), head coach Eileen and assistant coach Devon (Thomas Olajide), her life begins to unravel and push anything that is not cheerleading aside.
Waterson’s script follows the expected ebbs and flows of this type of character study with an unexpected inversion of its often invoked fatalism. While sutured into Riley’s point-of-view through a formalism that spotlights intense close-ups, flurried montages of training, and intensive, engrossing cinematography by James Poremba that makes the margins of the screen seem to blur around the suffered countenance of Jacobs, Backspot sufficiently explores the pains of her journey. The risk of injury, failure, or losing her partner due to her mounting obsession to meet her coach’s expectations is toyed with in Waterson’s script and relayed effortlessly to the audience through Jacobs’ agitated and empathetic portrayal of ambition. Like most of these types of character studies, one would expect this heedless pursuit of perfection to be the impetus to a downfall — the weight of her determination to be the best of The Thunderhawks to inevitably crush her.
Yet Waterson refreshingly opts not to tell that kind of story through her eye-opening portrait of the underseen demands of navigating the world of professional cheerleading. While Backspot dwells on the toll this world takes on the bodies and minds of these prospective cheerleaders, it nevertheless endeavors to still portray them as girls in high school who navigate the balance between their lives inside and outside of the auditorium. While Waterson spotlights the repetitive draining cycle of practicing cheer routines and choreography through vigorous and snappy montages, there is just as much time from the film’s scant runtime allocated to endearing scenes of Amanda and Riley going on dates, working part-time jobs, and having team-building, alcohol-fueled sleepovers with the rest of the cheer squad. Waterson’s arduous and accurate depiction of cheerleading’s underrepresented physical and mental demands does not come at the expense of the development of her characters or the film’s engaging depiction of teenage girlhood.
In one of the clearest distillations of the film’s theme and one of the most tender scenes of Backspot, Riley follows up on a rumour spread among the cheer squad that their assistant-coach Devon works as a drag performer by night. Sneaking into a raucous gay bar, she confirms the gossip with her own eyes over one too many shots (a symptom of her downward spiral caused by stress) only to be pulled into a surprisingly emotional heart-to-heart with her assistant coach. The message of this sequence is clear — much like he has a world outside of the tumbling, stunting, and rallying of the Thunderhawks, Riley’s professional ambition cannot be the only thing in her life.
It’s a sobering turn for a character study like this that is nevertheless heartwarming and effective. Unlike films like Whiplash or The Novice where those protagonists are driven to their lowest points of self-destruction under some unspoken agreement that is the price of success, Backspot offers a hopeful rebuttal that a balance can be found. While never sugarcoating the surprisingly taxing pressure ingrained into the world of professional cheerleading, what truly resonates with Waterson’s film is how this world is not the “end-all-be-all” for her characters.
