The themes of “coming of age” and “staying true to one’s self” on screen are as American as white bread. Score: A Hockey Musical (as you can tell from it’s title) is as Canadian as a box of Tim-Bits. The film knows exactly what it is, it’s not funded by the National Film Board, whose sensibilities lean more towards documentary and art films, but Telefilm Canada. It’s not so much a propaganda film as it is a heritage film.
The term heritage film is commonly associated with French films that deal with the effects of colonialism. If all of the colonies are in effect “French” the question of what is French culture is raised. Canada considers itself more of a mosaic, and includes government sponsorship of cultural heritage events and programs embracing the individuality of immigrant cultures. Score embraces with some self parody the heritage of hockey, even (spoiler alert) Walter Gretzky – Canada’s dad shows up.
I don’t know what to make of the film: I admit I enjoyed it, but it is manipulative. If Canada didn’t have a system of federal and providential filmmaking support that churned out enough productions a year to fill a multiplex on a weekly basis (many do go direct to video or have a festival life), then we’d shout “propaganda!”. The mission of the National Film Board, which had its roots Great Britain’s General Post Office Film Unit, was to educate Canadians about their country and to provide a cultural export that competes with Hollywood.
Helmed by Michael McGowan (One Week, Saint Ralph) – Score delivers what it promises. It’s a good-natured, high energy musical comedy starring Noah Reid as Farley Gordon, a home schooled 17 year old that plays for the sheer joy of the game. When he’s recruited to join an organized hockey team, his hippy parents, played by Olivia Newton-John and Marc Jordan, object. He brings about the skills he learns from them including pacifism to restrain himself from engaging in the good ol’ hockey fight.
There is a pretty girl next door that the young Farley pines for without knowing it. The film follows a formula, the songs at times aren’t particularly inspired including the closing number with the chorus “Hockey, Hockey – the greatest game in the land.” Culturally this is an interesting film, even if Nelly Furtado (who appears on the film’s poster) has a small, sad, disconnected role. Interesting and odd though does not make for in the end a successful film, there are many lost opportunities here.
The standard for awful guilty pleasure musicals is Menahem Golan’s The Apple and I imagine the film was written, directed, acted, sung, and edited by people consuming a Studio 54-amount of cocaine. I’m not sure what’s at work here, other than to genuinely provide a good time. It’s cheesy for sure but as entertainment it works, as all good government propaganda should. Either that or it’s a love letter to the Canadian legacy of hockey. I genuinely tend to think the later, however I wonder what its prospects are as a cultural export.
Perhaps Kim Jung-il’s vision for North Korean cinema will be equally as interesting and conflicting.
5.5 out of 10
