Events Transpiring Before, During, and After a High School Basketball Game

2021 • 75 minutes

About this movie

It's 1999 and the Middleview Ducks boys basketball team are about to play the most low-stakes game of their lives. As the team prepares for another certain loss, several unusual dramas take shape on the periphery. Joel (Benjamin Arthurs), the captain and benchwarmer, introduces his teammates to the tenets of existentialism. Brent (Andrew Phung), the assistant coach, lobbies to install Phil Jackson's famed triangle offensive system. Ken (Jay Morberg), the referee, finds himself entrusted with his wife's sickly Shih Tzu. And all the while, Middleview's radical theatre collective plots a protest action against the censure of their latest play. Taking place over the course of a single weeknight, Ted Stenson's feature debut paints a funny, offbeat, and endearing portrait of high school extracurriculars, where life's grand ambitions and mundane inadequacies collide.

Ratings and reviews

This movie is a gem. Whip smart from start to finish, it's hilariously and deftly understated, which only adds to the absurdity of the dialogue and only superficially mundane plot. The desaturated color palette can be a little bit monotonous, but the writing, directing, editing, acting, and cinematography are all top notch. Nothing bad to say about it. A definite antidote to the creatively bankrupt, vapid "film" that dominates most outlets. Streaming giants would do well to snap up this film, and more like it and the shining talent responsible for it.