Medora

An unflinching look a small Indiana town that at first glance appears to be dying. We follow several members of a very small high school's basketball team. The boys emerge as distinct personalities; the direction is unobtrusive, the musical score is unobtrusive but moving, the boys are awkward but gradually emerge as dignified presences. Some might see a bit of sentimentality here – but the reality of poverty, the boys' very tentative hopes to simply survive, and the whole towns' overwhelming dissociation from almost everything we see on television and from Hollywood is immensely touching. Beautifully photographed - there are several priceless views of the boys' watchful, proud, mostly silent mothers. The coaches – a policeman, a young pastor, an older stonemason - are good men doing immensely important work simply because - it is the right thing to do. Definitely worthwhile.