(courtesy IMP Awards)
There are always stories behind the stories – if you care to look for them, of course.
Which is precisely what Pixar’s first TV/streaming series, Win or Lose, with the studio’s customary blend of whimsy and hard-hitting, heartfelt humanity.
Set in a small U.S. community on the eve of a state championship softball game, Win or Lose goes deep into the lives of the middle school student players (approx. 11-14) and the adults in their lives, including the coach of the team, the umpire and one of the parents.
Rather cleverly, the series looks at the same events from eight different perspectives – each episode focuses on one key person, with the subject of each successive episode connected closely to the one before – and in so doing, beautifully illustrates that what we see on the surface, that what’s said and done by people, is really what’s going on behind the scenes.
To the uninformed or willfully unobservant bystander, events are playing out in a particular, easily-judged fashion, and what you see is what you get but Win or Lose does an exemplary job of digging down into the motivations and decisions of everyone involved and movingly and quirkily showing that simply goings surface deep does nothing more than distorting the truth of any situation.
It all comes to a head, as you might expect, in the final episode, “Home”, where the the threads of the previous seven episodes come together in the story of the coach, Coach Dan (Will Forte) who is going through a divorce and whose daughter, Laurie (Rosie Foss) is struggling to be as good at softball as the kids around her, including talented catcher Rochelle (Milan Ray), trans girl Kai (Chanel Stewart), talented player Taylor (Kyliegh Curran) and Yuwen (Izaac Wang).
He has a lot on his shoulders, with the devoted dad grappling with how to keep his much smaller world intact when all that remains in it are his daughters and his coaching of the softball team which may be taken away from him by ambitiously aggressive parents who want to win at all costs, even tapping one of their own, Kai’s dad James (Lil Rel Howery) who was big in college baseball.
Without giving too much away, Coach Dan has a meltdown in the final episode, and while those looking on with no emotional skin in the game, might judge him, and they do, for uncharacteristically losing his cool, this incredibly public and extremely vulnerable moment is testament that no one event ever happens in isolation from everything else.
Each of the characters featured, which includes all the kids and Coach Dan mentioned above, Taylor’s younger brother Ira (Dorien Watson), the umpire, Frank Brown (Josh Thomson), a New Zealand teacher at the middle school from which the team is largely drawn, and Rochelle’s devoted single mum, Vanessa (Rosa Salazar) go through a lot on a routine basis, but especially in the week leading up to the big team, and Win or Lose beautifully explores how the unseen pressures of life shape what happens where everyone can see.
It’s as heartfelt and emotionally thoughtful as it comes, but Win or Lose also employs some trademark Pixar idiosyncrasies including its wonderful propensity for displaying emotions in really imaginatively, inventive ways.
All of the episode subjects have their insecurities, anxieties, true selves presented in some really quirky but emotionally impactful ways that, entertaining though they most certainly are, emphasise how much we all dealing with on an ongoing basis and how nothing is ever what it seems on the surface.
Take the romance between Taylor and Yuwen.
On the surface, Taylor is super capable, watching her little brother, Ira, who has troubles of his own and whose way of coping with the world is to imagine 2D renderings of grand adventures where he is in control and triumphant over his enemies, while Yuwen is a ballsy, alpha male in the making, a super talented pitcher who is troubled by nothing and no one.
But as these kids take first tentative then quite enthusiastic steps towards one another in a romantic sense, those public personas fall away and what we see is a raw, vulnerable 2D cardboard animated kid inside (Yuwen) who just wants to be loved by his girlfriend.
All these kids want it to be close to each other and be themselves and the physical representation of Yuwen’s inner child really drives home how the person we see when we interact with someone is rarely the person nestled deep behind the layers of protective public persona.
Delightfully quirky it might be, with Laurie’s coping mechanism showing as a wisecracking, ever-growing imaginary friend called Sweaty and Frank’s a glowing blue suit of armour to repel all comers to him, including possible romantic interests, Win or Lose uses these visual elements, which have a personality all their own, to beautifully flesh out the characters and to add real emotional power to its story.
This is a series with its heart worn firmly on its sleeve, rather ironically by showing how eight of its key characters are burying theirs, and its willingness to be deep and seriously thoughtful while being quirky and charming absolutely work in the same way as many of Pixar’s feature-length animated triumphs like Toy Story, Up and Luca.
In fact, if you’re inclined to dismiss this as just a cartoon for kids, think again because Win or Lose packs way more emotional punch that many live action shows this reviewer has seen lately thanks to its willingness to go beyond the facade, to show that what is said and done, often bears little to no resemblance to what’s going on deep inside someone.
It’s a freeing show to watch because of that, and while you will laugh, and often, at the animated and verbal flourishes of Win or Lose, it’s your heart that will really become fully and comprehensively and rawly engaged, as the show movingly and vulnerably explores who we really are, who we present ourselves to be, and how life can be so much richer, if scarier, when we bravely let the two become one and the same.
Win or Lose streams on Disney+