Him (2025)

Him offers insight into the immense sacrifices athletes must make in order to attain their goals. More importantly, it acts as an examination of that sacrifice being pushed to unnatural limits and exploited by an overwhelmingly powerful cultural and financial system.

One of the announcers at the beginning of the film declares that sports are "theater with real consequences." Cam's father shows an almost religious fervor for this theater, even forcing his son to watch as a key player, Zay, is badly injured. Cam’s father plainly states that real men "make sacrifices; no guts, no glory. We won."

The days of the film are titled, but the events of some days better align with the titles than others. Still, the undercurrents of high-pressure performance and a challenge to achieve are present every day. In particular, a focus is put upon Cam’s willingness to suffer or cause others to suffer in order to attain a certain level of performance.

Football is visually established as bloodsport, with the doctor, Marco, even going so far as to declare: "Gladiators swore an oath to their trainers to endure being burnt, beaten, killed with a sword. It's funny, isn't it? That primal urge. American football is just the newest iteration."

The ending is not wholly satisfying, with the film unable to conjure anything beyond a simple contract for Cam to sign. This is peculiar, because the ending sequence has varied and frankly odd visuals; the mundane choice of a literal contract stands out as perhaps uninspired.

That said, overall the visuals of the film are generally a strong point. There are recurrent x-ray shots which are well integrated. Light is used to consistently set the mood. Cam is even stained red by the light as he is seen juicing with Zay's blood.

Most of the film's weaknesses, and they are significant, are story-based. The choices in pacing seem almost unintelligible past the first act, which is unfortunate as certain isolated scenes remain intriguing. The narrative feels incomplete; Cam's victory feels hollow and purely metaphorical, dampening the otherwise potentially satisfying parts of his story.

The film touches on race but mostly fumbles the topic. Cam is given mild shit about his mixed background and white characters are depicted as uniformly evil monsters. It’s got things to say, but they are clearly monosyllabic.

Him is in possession of some fairly strong visuals and interesting commentary. Unfortunately, it suffers from a weak story which is poorly paced and a nonsensical ending. Despite its best efforts on the field, Him doesn’t quite make the cut.