Nick Borenstein | Pete Can't Play Basketball / 2020

sitting it out

by Douglas Messerli

 

Nick Borenstein (screenwriter and director) Pete Can't Play Basketball / 2020 [8 minutes]

 

Although this short film played in the LGBTQ circuit, I almost passed on reviewing it. And even as I sit down to write about it, I still have absolutely no idea what the film is attempting to express. The title says it all.

     Poor Pete (Nick Borenstein), a hard worker in an office job is refused a promotion not because of the quality of his work, which female his boss admits is stellar, but that he can’t contribute to the off-hour’s effort of the fellow workers’ basketball team.

     Pete recalls that as a child, he could play the game, but now as an adult has no ability. He nonetheless decides to sign up for the new team the office is creating for a new season, much to the jeers of his fellow workers, none of whom Pete likes. Like so many office workers throughout the country, they are nearly all sports crazy, women and men alike.

      Pete attempts to practice a few dribbles and hoop shots. Most of them even miss the area of the hoop, but one, the very last, finally goes in, to be witnessed at that very moment by a fellow office worker.

      Suddenly Pete is asked to dine with the other workers, and they look forward to the first practice scrimmage and the choice of the final 12 players. Pete does okay on the dribble. But when it comes to shooting into the hoop, he misses it by miles, and once again becomes the laughing stock of his fellow workers. Carl (Dru Johnston) steps in behind him and puts the ball right where it should fall. He’s the hero, invited out to dinner with his colleagues.

      But Carl stays behind with the dejected Pete, admitting that he has no intention of joining the basketball team. He too hates his fellow workers. So Pete has found a new friend.

       Perhaps that’s important, since Pete appears to possibly be gay, although nothing in this film is spoken about his or any else’s sexuality, and there is absolutely no indication that he might be gay except for slight tonal qualities of his voice (which we all know and have been told are absolutely unreliable). Pete has no affectations, and not one scene in the movie truly points to his gay sexuality. If you do research on-line you might discover that the writer, director, and major actor Borenstein is gay, and that he has done other films such as Sweater (which I review in the 2018-2019 volume) which is quite obviously gay and includes a wonderful dance sequence. But those sources, of course, lie outside the current film.

     Of course, there are many gay men who profess no interest in sports; I am one of them. But that doesn’t necessarily spell out that you are a member of the LGBTQ community. Carl, for example, seems quite straight.

 

Los Angeles, August 7, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (August 2024).