Rudy, an underdog sports movie that features Catholicism, prayers, and a kindly priest, nonetheless looks secular compared to its ancestors.
There are a number of once-popular genres and subgenres that have been absorbed – hopefully temporarily – into larger corporate concerns in 2023: Comedies subsumed by “funny” superhero movies, adult dramas translated into overlong ten-episode prestige TV, rom-coms converted into not-quite-cinema streaming content.
, taking a movie type already prone to sentimental clichés and further flattening it into the product of prayer and constancy. By comparison,, an underdog sports movie from 30 years ago that features not one but two Catholic institutions and has its hero praying multiple times to receive permissions to transfer from one to the other, looks positively secular.
Put a better way: He’s five foot nothin’, a hundred and nothin’, with barely a speck of athletic ability. That’s how the Notre Dame groundskeeper Fortune describes him late in the film, in what would be its most memorable moment if not for the big inspirational ending and the swell of Jerry Goldsmith’s score. Dutton is supposedly playing a composite character, and in the hands of a lesser performer, I’d be talking about a composite of “bull” and “shit.
To the movie’s credit, it’s not about Fortune mentoring Rudy, who becomes his assistant. Fortune simply puts the kid to work, granting him some symbolic and literal terra firma, and providing that late-movie dressing-down when he needs it.is very much not about Rudy becoming a better football player, but about repeatedly demonstrating what so many friends and coaches and various unconventional authority figures describe as his.
Maybe I’m being a little too hard on ol’ Rudy; Dutton’s mini-monologue addresses most of those concerns, reminding him that the actual fruits of his labor include a degree from a prestigious university, which will outlast his fleeting glory . I’m sure this resonated with my Notre Dame alum dad, who took me to see the movie back in 1993, and liked to pontificate on how academic and athletic achievement didn’t need to be mutually exclusive.
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