Movie Review: 'Backspot' Starring Devery Jacobs

Backspot (2024)

Directed by D.W Waterson

Written by Joanne Sarazen, D.W Waterson

Starring Devery Jacobs, Evan Rachel Wood, Kudakwashe Rutendo, Shannyn Sossamon

Release Date May 31st, 2024

Published May 29th, 2024

If you are going to use a particular style of handheld camera work, make sure that it is being used for a good purpose. Handheld or shaky cam style is a visual tool that works when you are making a movie like The Blair Witch Project where the characters are also the camera operators, and their camera is also the eyes of the audience. The characters are active and running and the shaky cam reflects the fact they are running for their lives. Shaky cam is not recommended when you are trying to have a serious, dramatic conversation, say, between a mother and a daughter at a crossroads.

Unfortunately, there is a scene in the new cheerleading melodrama, Backspot, in which star Devery Jacobs is having a dramatic, late in the movie, conversation with her mother, played by Shannyn Sossomon. The scene isn't poorly acted, from what I could see of it. Sadly, I had to look away because co-writer and director D.W Waterson chooses to shoot the scene with a camera that will not stop shaking. The style choice undermines the drama, it loses focus on the heavy emotions at play, and it's just visually impossible to look at.

Backspot could be called Everything Works Out Fine The Movie. The film is about Riley, a young gay teenager whose twin obsessions are her girlfriend, Amanda (Kudukwashe Rutenda), and Cheerleading. More specifically, Riley is obsessed with making the Varsity Cheer Squad headed up by hardnosed champion Coach, Eileen McNamara (Evan Rachel Wood). Injuries have hampered Coach McNamara's team this season and she will be choosing three new members of her team from Riley's team. You might assume we are going to get a dramatic plot from this but no.

Off screen, after a minor setback, Riley, Amanda, and their friend Rachel (Noa DiBerto), are chosen without much drama at all. The practices are long and hard and eventually, they are a little too much for Amanda who quits. You are now expecting that this might cause a rift between Riley and Amanda and for a scene or two, it does. And then they make up and the movie continues. It's as if any time the movie introduces a complication it's resolved almost immediately. The film has many opportunities to establish a conflict that might produce compelling drama only to then resolve the drama far too quickly and with a pat, simplistic conclusion with no long-term impact.

But it's the style of Backspot that ultimately sinks the movie. The shaky cam choice is an interesting idea for the cheerleading scenes, but it also appears to be used to cover up any limitations in the people performing these elaborate cheer routines. Through the shaky cam stuff, we get a sense of the nervous energy of performing but it comes at the cost of not getting to see enough of these remarkably talented young women performing their routines. Cheerleading is a hardcore sport that requires intense physical conditioning and Backspot does a great job of helping us to understand the physical and emotional hardships involved. I just wish we'd gotten to see as much of the triumph as we saw of the agony of practice and failure. The camera is simply shaking and moving too much for us to get a good glimpse of when the team is performing well.

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