There’s no question that cheerleading is a brutal, physically demanding sport. Tosses, human pyramids, synchronized moves — it takes a lot out of the people who practice the sport. In Rovaniemi, a city in Finland in the Arctic circle, the Arctic Circle Spirit (ACS) cheerleaders struggle every year. Early on in the documentary the audience sees the girls miss numerous moves and make plenty of mistakes. They take part in a national qualifying competition and, to no surprise, come in last place.
This prompts Miia, the team’s coach, to visit Dallas, Texas and observe the cheerleading scene there. The shots at the Cheer Athletics gym are of efficiency and teamwork despite physical struggle. Miia is inspired, and returns to Finland with a stricter regime in mind. It doesn’t take long for this new coaching strategy to make the already-glum ACS team even more morose. The cameras don’t shy away as the girls get bruised and bleed.
At this point audiences may think they know where the documentary is heading — there will be much blood, sweat and tears, and eventually they will achieve their ultimate goal and win a competition. However, director Christy Garland is not telling that kind of story at all.
Much of the film is devoted to the personal lives of three people on the ACS team. Miia’s story revolves largely around a Tinder date and its unexpected repercussions on all aspects of her life. Patrica (“Patu”) has a difficult relationship with her father after her mother dies, and it only gets more complicated when his father’s new girlfriend becomes a larger part of his life. Aino, meanwhile, skips a lot of cheerleading practice and makes a hasty decision with her boyfriend.
For the most part, Garland doesn’t need to ask her subjects questions — as they reach darker chapters in their lives, there’s much natural drama that unfolds in front of her cameras. It should become clear before the beautifully shot final few scenes that this isn’t a movie about a team’s miraculous turnaround. Rather, Garland tells the story of how her subjects’ personal lives inform the sport they participate in. It may be one of the least uplifting movies about cheerleading, but it’s still a compelling watch.
Cheer Up will play on May 5 and 7 at the Hot Docs International Film Festival in Toronto. See all of Digital Journal’s coverage of this year’s festival here.
