Although she is big news in the US, I confess that I only heard of Mo'ne Davis via a bit on John Oliver's HBO show. Even through the few clips he showed though, I was interested enough to check out this short film, which was directed by Spike Lee and produced by car company Chevy.
Lee interviews the Davis family, Mo'ne's coach Steve Bandura, Albert Chen of Sports Illustrated, friends from around her South Philadelphia neighborhood, and most notably Mo'ne herself. One thing that concerned me coming into the film would be that it would be forced to be inspiration or somehow linked to an advertising slogan – because even though Chevy say they are "celebrating" Mo'ne, ultimately what they would really like to do is sell more cars. To the film's credit, this side of things is left to the final minute, where we see Mo'ne get driven up to the famous City Hall steps in a Chevy, then run up and run down again while delivering a written piece. This section may well play on its own as a commercial, it certainly looks like this was the point of it, outside of this though the film is much better.
I'm not a big fan of Lee as a person (or at least the public personae that we see, put it that way) but he does get people relaxing here and joking around. He is no Herzog, but the contributors appear to be enjoying the chat and having fun with it. This is a nice base for the film, and it continues with Mo'ne herself, who does seem grounded even though she is confident in her talent. She didn't seem stage managed, or arrogant, or distant in the way so many male teenage sportsmen would be if they blew up in the same way. Instead she just seem talented and working hard. Personally I would like to have heard more about her progress in her education, because this is more than the sports – but unfortunately it is merely mentioned once. This would have added more layers to this success story and would have broadened the message of inspiration and hard work; I am speculating but I did wonder if the rather middle-class aspects of the private education would have been seen to detract from the "pulling yourself up" image – it would not have done so, but perhaps it was thought it may; either way the film really doesn't touch it.
The film looks good and is technically clean and slick, but it is the warmth and chemistry of the contributions that make it engaging, particularly those of Mo'ne. She is not so good with scripted lines but when she is comfortable with the camera she is fun and chatty – easy to see why she has become such a figure of public interest, and it is her that makes this film such an engaging story.
