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 those sacrifices 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."
When Cam grows up and becomes a promising athlete himself, he receives the opportunity to train with Zay at his private compound. The days of his training 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 established as bloodsport, both visually and through dialogue, 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."
This is made abundantly clear through Cam’s violent training and when he is seen stained red by the lighting as he is juicing with Zay's blood. Overall the visuals of the film are generally a strong point. There are recurrent x-ray shots which are well integrated. Practice and combat are both often brightly lit with the exception of certain scenes such as when Cam faces Zay one on one. Other scenes take on more moody lighting. The contrast captures the bizarre ritualization of Cam’s efforts both on and off the field.
The ending is not terribly satisfying. To illustrate Cam’s victory and induction into the upper echelon of athletes, he is presented with a literal contract to sign. This is peculiar, because the ending sequence has varied and frankly odd visuals; the costumes and makeup are elaborate, the staging is a bit surreal, the action is stylized and violent, yet the film couldn’t conjure anything more visually imaginative than a simple piece of paper. This is emblematic of the film’s overall qualitative inconsistency.
Most of the film's weaknesses, and they are significant, are story-based. The choices in pacing seem almost unintelligible beyond the first act, which is unfortunate as certain isolated scenes may have been intriguing if placed in a sturdier story frame. More importantly, the narrative feels incomplete; Cam's victory appears hollow and purely metaphorical, dampening an ending which is meant to be satisfying.
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. This is unfortunate given the commentary opportunities that the subject matter makes available. Cam’s background may have warranted more serious thought as opposed to being watered down to racial ribbing.
Him is in possession of some fairly strong visuals and a dash or two of potentially 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.