Gridiron Grind

American high school football. A fairly common topic for fiction despite its lack of international appeal. The book Friday Night Lights got turned into a movie which got turned into a TV show. All variations of the story are good, but there’s pretty minimal gay people in the Friday Night Lights universe. More recently, there’s also been a TV series called All American. It’s not as good as Friday Night Lights, but the main character’s best friend is a lesbian. Progress! Gridiron Grind– which comes to us by way of Tubi- goes the full distance. Its protagonist is a female football player discovering her sexuality. We got there. We’re the protagonist. Disappointingly, this Tubi original movie isn’t as good as any variation of Friday Night Lights. It’s not even as good as All American.

Riley already has a spot on the school team at the start of Gridiron Grind. But at the end of the season, Riley experiences discrimination and sexual harassment from one of her teammates. This is followed by her mother heavily disapproving of Riley’s extracurricular. So, Riley quits. After a time skip, Riley is at a loose end while her sister, Tyler is seemingly the golden child. Riley is encouraged to again, try out for the football team. Though again, she finds little support from many of the boys on the team. But something’s different now. There’s a quirky girl named Paige working as the team’s medical assistant. Paige is very supportive of Riley. But her presence also makes Riley question some things she’d kept a tight lid on up until now.

What works about Gridiron Grind is the choice of story. They chose a really good one. There’s a lot of fertile ground for storytelling in exploring a girl on an all boy’s sports team. Hell, I actually don’t know if the movie needed to be as queer-focused as it was. I’m always happy to see that plot. But there’s so much story Gridiron Grind could tell just in terms of being an underdog sports story, a general coming of age film and exploring forms of discrimination Riley faces that I’m surprised they had enough time to work in Riley’s sexuality. This is one of those movies where I want it to succeed. This is an interesting premise and protagonist. And at the start of the film, I was high on the potential of this story.

But realistically, the movie’s execution is pretty mid. It’s a streaming service movie with lower quality than an average TV episode. There’s an amateur feel to a lot of it. While the script picked a good story, the film’s dialogue never feels natural. The line delivery affects this too. There’s a distinct feel of actors repeating rehearsed lines as opposed to anything feeling like natural conversation. Elements of slang and filler words like “yo” are so methodically used that they feel the opposite of natural. Gridiron Grind also dips into comedic tones semi-often, usually after something a bit darker happens. I don’t really welcome this comedic tone when the very first scene was a pretty harrowing scene of sexual harassment and discrimination. There’s a way to do these themes in a way that’s appropriate for teens without minimizing them by adding an overall lighter, comedic feel to other moments.

The lesbian relationship in the film is adorably lesbian 101. Paige could not telegraph harder that she’s queer. and then she outright makes Riley a playlist of queer musicians. God, I wish a girl would be so forward. From here, it’s a fairly stop and start relationship as Riley figures herself out while Paige waits patiently on the sidelines. At one point, some miscommunication makes Paige mad at Riley. But when Riley realizes she needs to apologize and wants to kiss a girl, Paige is right there, eagerly waiting to accept her apology and fall into her designated role as the quintessential lesbian high school girlfriend.

Gridiron Grind is probably the best Tubi original movie I’ve seen. But that’s a very low bar. Ultimately, the finished product isn’t of a strong enough quality to even compete with a CW teen show. I still have some respect for it because of the story it chose to tell. But I also really wish that the execution of that story had matched the potential of this narrative.

Overall rating: 5.4/10

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