This Sporting Life

This Sporting Life, a 1963 film by Lindsay Anderson, may be the definitive British miserabilist film, at least in the New Wave era. It is exceedingly well written, acted, and directed, and is about as cheery as an autopsy. It's a wonder, watching these films, that suicide isn't rampant in Britain.

The story concerns Frank Machin, played by Richard Harris in his star-making role. He's a coal miner who gets a chance to try out for the city's professional rugby team, and he quickly becomes a star, buying a fancy white car. But he stays in his one room in a house owned by a widow, Rachel Roberts, who carries around her dead husband like a weight on her shoulders. Harris, despite being able to have any woman, is determined to have her, and she eventually relents, but there is little joy in it for her.

The film has a number of relationships examined. Harris is initially the favorite of the owners of the team, Alan Badel, but the man's wife tries to seduce Harris and Badel seems to intuit it. Also, Badel is the man who owns the factory where Roberts' husband died, and she lost her case for workmen's compensation. When Harris proudly shows her a check from the team, signed by Badel, she looks away in disgust.

Harris is also close to the scout who gave him his chance, an old man he calls "Dad" (William Hartnell). I wasn't quite sure what to make of this, wondering if it was a very obscure homosexual attraction, as Roberts points out that Hartnell looks at Harris as if he were a girl.

But the core of the film is the relationship between Harris and Roberts, as unfathomable as almost any relationship in real life. Why does Harris pursue her? She's not unattractive, but has a face chiseled by rough years, rarely forming a smile. She turns to him most likely for physical reasons, but grows to resent being treated like a kept woman, wearing a fur coat that she bought him, the neighbors calling her a slut behind her back.

Harris' performance is remarkable, and he amplifies the script by David Storey, who wrote the film based on his novel. Harris is not a moron--he is seen reading (albeit a paperback potboiler), and resents being referred to as "an ape on the football field." He comes to realize that that is all he is, though, and all he may well ever be. As I said, not a Hallmark card, but an outstanding film.