Pedro?
American Pie has “MILF” and the fucking of baked goods. Superbad has McLovin. Varsity Blues has a whipped cream bikini and “I don’t want your laife.” This is a film that lives in the cultural bloodstream because of an iconic image and an unforgettable line delivery, James Van Der Beek’s Texas drawl ringing into eternity. But this movie is more than a couple of memes, and even though it has a deep crisis of tone at its core that it never shakes, it still has that Friday night lights magic: the zest of autumn, the terror of adolescence, the dreams of what we may become. I watch, and suddenly I’m back in the high school marching band, scarfing junk food after our halftime show and laughing at inside jokes. Cool fall air and stadium rock. I never went to parties like this, but Varsity Blues makes me nostalgic. (Great title, by the way.)
We meet backup QB Jonathan “Mox” Moxon (Van Der Beek), a bookish kid already halfway out of Texas exurb West Canaan in his head, and tyrant-king Coach Bud Kilmer (Jon Voight), a growling taskmaster of win-at-all-costs smash-mouth football. Golden boy starter Lance Harbor (Paul Walker) floats through school hallways and kegger parties like a hometown deity, while lovable fat-ass lineman Billy Bob (Ron Lester) abuses his body for the team and for peer entertainment. Resident sex pest/one-liner cannon Charlie Tweeder (Scott Caan) is a loyal friend but a devil on Mox’s shoulder at every point. Mox’s girl-next-door love Jules (Amy Smart) tries to point him toward a future; head cheerleader Darcy Sears (Ali Larter) tries to point him toward her bedroom.
The logline and script read as a filthy teen comedy, and Varsity Blues is certainly a specimen of that genre to some degree. But director (and later bigwig producer) Brian Robbins also steers the movie towards something more wistful and emotionally charged, and the subsequent struggle for Varsity Blues’ soul is fascinating. For a movie remembered as raunch-com sports pulp, the film is surprisingly cinematic: low angles gulping Texas sky and stadium lights, heat-wobble montages of farm equipment and practice dust, and a few bold push-ins and dolly zooms. Robbins and cinematographer Chuck Cohen turn a backyard cookout into a fever dream of curdling angst and crushing social expectations. The football itself is cut to feel like ritual sacrifice: slow-mo carnage full of wartime casualties. A hangover-game montage set to classic rock is likely the best thing Robbins has ever directed; bodies flutter sideways like rag dolls while the camera watches with equal parts awe and concern at the kids’ crumbling fates.
Tonally, Varsity Blues alternates on practically a scene-by-scene basis between frothy comedy and more earnest sports and Americana mode. Its ambivalent treatment of some of its football-specific content plays very odd in retrospect: It’s hard to know to what extent the movie knows that getting concussed or ruptured on Friday and injected on Monday was dooming its players to potential long-term brain and body damage, as it genuinely reads both as dismissive and tragic from beat to beat. Voight (far and away the best in show) plays the part of authoritarian dead-serious, refusing to turn Kilmer into a cartoon. He’s scarier because he believes in the gospel he’s preaching. Genuinely, this persona could be an SEC coach. When he hisses about “48 minutes for the next 48 years,” it’s easy to imagine both the inspiration and fear that statement instills in these 18-year-olds. The movie also depicts the privilege of being a gridiron star in a football town: a cop declines to prosecute kids who carjack his cruiser so he doesn’t get shunned by the community, and convenience stores hand out six-packs to Mox and co. at no charge.
The teen-soap beats are less tidy, and I suspect earlier drafts of the screenplay played up the love triangle a bit more. Mox and Jules have a prickly rhythm that never fully resolves into a clear relationship dynamic; she’s alternately a sweetheart and a scold. Sears gets that iconic seduction (fun fact: it’s really shaving cream) and then, puzzlingly, exits the movie. But the friendships feel lived-in: Walker’s low-key warmth gives Lance and Mox an easy, friendly rapport rather than the more narratively intuitive rivalry, a nice counterweight to the hyper-competitive testosterone seen elsewhere. And when Billy Bob has a breakdown in the third act, it hits hard; Lester plays the clown wonderfully, then pivots to drama effortlessly, giving maybe the best teen performance of the film.
The movie’s climax is a bit sloppy from a narrative perspective, clearly rewritten a dozen times prior to filming. It really piles on the stakes: a halftime mutiny, an all-out last stand to defeat bullying and racism (oh yeah, there’s a race-bullying subplot), and a big speech from Mox about playing “for us.” It’s corny, but it sells the sports movie beats well. Do I wish it risked a weirder and more bittersweet final note, like its more serious cousin Friday Night Lights? A little. (According to Robbins’ commentary track, one draft included less triumph and more melancholy in the closing scenes.) But the ending as written indeed satisfies.
It’s not a hidden masterpiece or anything, but I vibe with Varsity Blues. It has a pleasing blend of moods. I like its warm embrace of both sex comedy and earnest drama. It sharply captures a teenage mythology written in the bleachers and parking lots. It makes me long for my own high school years. Maybe that sounds like a bad time for you, but if so, well…
Is It Good?
Good (5/8)
Related Articles
Dan is the founder and head critic of The Goods. Follow Dan on Letterboxd. Join the Discord for updates and discussion.