Curl Power, a documentary by Josephine Anderson, highlights similarities between teenagers and curling at the start. Both are ignored and undervalued.
Adolescents can find it hard to fit into an ever-changing world when they have no set path to follow them through their transition into adulthood. It is even harder when you are an athlete trying out for a few spots on your country’s team at international competitions.
This is the life of 4KGIRL$, a team of five teenage curlers from the suburbs of Maple Ridge, British Columbia who are competing for the Canadian Junior Curling Championships. Amy, Ashley, Brooklyn, Hannah and Savannah not only play together but are also close friends; hours spent practicing and travelling together develop that bond.
Coached by three mothers all Olympic medalists themselves the girls must endure strict training regimens which include attending special curling camps in order to polish their skills while traveling from tournament to tournament with Anderson’s camera in tow as they compete and self-promote through social media platforms where we see glimpses into many external forces impacting their personal lives.
Figuring out what colleges or universities to go to. Dealing with anxiety and depression. Wrestling with body image issues. These are just some examples of adolescent challenges faced by these young women.
A traditional sports documentary may be what Curl Power looks like on the surface but at its heart it is a coming-of-age tale about youth’s fleetingness; how life once seemed endless to these girls but now reality quickens past them in discordant pitches ticking so fast! The girls being grade elevens and twelves know that their days as kids are numbered; soon enough they will scatter different directions taking them away from each other forever – forever? Or do they?
While Anderson does paint an accurate picture of late teens’ end of adulthood experiences she does so with rather wide brush strokes sometimes leaving too little room for nuance.
The enormity of these girls’ challenges are not sufficiently conveyed despite bringing them up in the first place. Like its curling sliders on ice never scratching below surface level, Anderson’s camera looks at the girls more as affectionate observers than curious ones; we only get a few glimpses into their worlds when one tells her mom that her body is different and another admits she hasn’t been feeling right since finding out about her mother’s cancer diagnosis but they are few and far between.
Just as tall fences surround their homes keeping neighbors’ prying eyes at bay there seems to be another kind of barrier preventing audiences from getting close with these characters while some do express fear about leaving Maple Ridge someday, for instance, most of what we see them doing around town amounts sitting in grass or playing with boyfriends by riversides; even within houses themselves little is learned about relationships between parents and children beyond what would be expected of Olympian offspring which Curl Power shows no interest in exploring.
The movie wants to show a dreamlike version of youth that the girls fear will be interrupted.
It’s obvious that the 4KGIRL$ are going through a period of important change in their lives. It’s like the last rock throw in curling; it could go anywhere. But never once do we doubt they’ll come very close to the button in Curl Power.
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