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With March Madness coming up, there's one sport many of us have on our minds: Roarball.
Here in the real world, we're actually getting ready to watch basketball, but in the world of GOAT, Roarball is all the rage. As a lover of so-called "kids' movies", I've been excited to see this film since the first trailer released. Although I'm not much of a sports fan, I had a feeling that GOAT was something special– or that I would at least be entertained by it.
GOAT follows Will Harris (Caleb McLaughlin) as he tries to become a professional Roarball (this world's more violent equivalent to basketball) player. There's just one problem: he's too small.
"Smalls can't ball!"
In most movies for kids, Will's size would be the set up for a character arc in which he must learn to accept his attributes and use his specific abilities to his advantage. While he somewhat does the latter (he uses his goat vision to help him, but not his size), Will doesn't need to learn to love himself in this film because he already starts out doing so. GOAT is one of few films in which the main character goes through a flat character arc.
Many of us are familiar with character arcs, or the change that a character goes through because of the events of the story. These arcs are seen in most movies. Flat arcs, on the other hand, are the opposite; they occur when a character stays the same. It seems strange. How can it be considered an arc if the character doesn't change?
The most important aspect of the flat arc is how the main character causes others to change.
If you've studied character arcs, you're probably familiar with the concepts of the lie that keeps the character from their goal and the truth that they must learn in order to be happy. In a positive or negative arc, the character starts out believing the lie and ends the film by either accepting or rejecting the truth.
In a flat arc, the character starts the film already knowing the truth. They instead spend the runtime having their beliefs tested and/or showing the other characters the truth. Paddington 2 is a great example of this.
Will acts similarly to Paddington. He starts the film knowing that he has the ability to help his local Roarball team, the Vineland Thorns, win the coveted Claw (the championship trophy), and spends the runtime helping his teammates believe in themselves too.
The teammate Will helps the most is his hero and team leader, Jett Filmore (Gabrielle Union). Jett is the classic veteran player who everyone thinks should retire. While most films would have this character eventually learn to let go of their career, GOAT instead has Jett learn to work with her teammates and reject the idea that she has to quit. While she sacrifices her career by playing through an injury, the end of the film implies that it's not over for Jett.
GOAT's world is well-crafted. In many films with anthropomorphic animals, the world stays largely the same to our world. In this film, Vineland feels alive with community roots that run deep. Community is an important aspect of sports culture that many sports movies ignore. The atmosphere helps the audience feel like we're a part of this community.
I was happily surprised to see that Roarball is a co-ed sport. Sports films don't often include women, and they certainly don't allow said women to be at the same skill level as the male characters. Jett and Olivia (Nicola Coughlan) are shown to be capable members of their team who just need to believe in themselves like the rest of their teammates. I was also happy to see that Will's hero since childhood was a woman. Boys aren't usually told that they should look up to women and I think it's important that Will does.
On top of all these great attributes, GOAT is hilarious. It has a lot of animal puns and clever physical humor that anyone can laugh at. A lot of kids' movies will use adult humor that kids don't understand in order to engage with adult audiences, but this film is able to tell jokes that are funny no matter your age.
This movie is also one of very few that uses slang well. Given that a lot of slang is derived from African-American Vernacular English, it makes sense that a film with many black people in higher positions such as Director Tyree Dillihay and producer Stephen Curry would use slang properly.
"Auntie Olivia is not giving bird."Embed from Getty Images
While the phrase "this is fun for the whole family!" might be overdone, it's exactly how I'd describe GOAT. In fact, the film has such broad appeal that almost anyone would enjoy seeing it. I believe that GOAT could be considered one of the GOATs of animal sports films.
