by Robert Bouffard
I love to engage with media that challenges my beliefs. It makes me think deeply when a film or television show presents themes or characters who are opposed to my worldview. I like to understand where other people are coming from. Understanding and engaging others’ viewpoints are essential to forming your own.
I’ve come to this conclusion largely because I grew up in an atmosphere that discouraged this oppositional engagement. The suggested way of handling this was to shelter your mind and insist that you were right, which is counterproductive.
Nowadays, I get excited when I watch a movie and love it, only to realize it has an oppositional viewpoint to another movie I love. It just serves to materialize the sort of debate and cultivation of thought that I enjoy so much. These instances show me that contrasting ideas can coexist and each thrive, which is the kind of world I strive for.
So join me as I examine two movies that send opposite messages, but which I still love just the same.
Both movies that I have chosen here explore a number of different themes. But I’m boiling them each down to how they deal with one idea in particular: success.
The two films are Moneyball and La La Land. On the surface, they may not seem like they’re all about success. Most of what I hear regarding Moneyball is how great the acting and the script are, and how it isn’t talked about enough as one of the best movies in the last 10 years (which it isn’t). As for La La Land, I hear hardcore movie fans rave about how it references Hollywood classics and features incredible direction from Damien Chazelle along with outstanding lead performances, and I hear casual movie fans say that it has good music but a terrible ending. Well, as my third (Moneyball) and twelfth (La La Land) favorite movies of all time, I say that they each have so much more to them than the general tweet-length opinion would say about them.
Moneyball has been one of my favorite movies for a long time now. For years, I loved it simply because it’s a fun movie about baseball. Baseball is my favorite sport and one of my favorite things. So of course, seeing a movie which combines one of Brad Pitt’s best performances, Jonah Hill’s first foray into dramatic acting, an Aaron Sorkin script, and baseball is really right up my alley.
I’ve often mentioned that there are a number of movies I fell in love with at an age before I realized the meaning behind why I loved them. These movies taught me something about life and subconsciously helped to change the way I think. This includes The Lord of the Rings, Inception, and surprisingly enough, the Star Wars prequels. So as much as I hate to admit it, it wasn’t until just a couple of years ago that I realized the true deep meaning of Moneyball.
This is a movie about baseball, but not in the same way The Natural or The Sandlot are about baseball. It’s about the inner workings of a baseball organization. Pitt plays Billy Beane, the General Manager of the Oakland Athletics. The A’s are a small market team, which means they don’t have the same financial resources to field a great team every year as teams like the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox do. The A’s have moderate success each year, but because they can’t afford to keep their best players, they can never seem to get over the hump and win the World Series. As Billy puts it, “There are rich teams and there are poor teams. Then there’s 50 feet of crap, and then there’s us.”
So based off the “moneyball” philosophy of a man named Bill James, Billy abandons the way baseball teams have been assembled for over a century and attempts to reinvent the way people think about constructing a roster. Along with a young front office employee, Peter Brand (Hill), Billy decides that the A’s should start looking for smalltime players who will collectively help the team win instead of big superstars who will demand large contracts. The movie focuses on how Billy and Pete build an offense which can score runs and a bullpen which can maintain leads. Players like Scott Hatteberg, David Justice, and Chad Bradford are emphasized throughout the film. This does leave out the fact that they had a great starting rotation of pitchers lead by Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, and Mark Mulder, but the focus is so heavily on the other aspects of the team that it is easy to let that slide.
The movie shows that after a good deal of difficulty and struggles, Billy’s 2002 A’s won a record 20 straight games and made it to the playoffs, only to lose in the first round. But the success of the team gained attention around baseball and the Red Sox, one of the aforementioned “rich teams,” offered Billy the largest contract ever for a General Manager in professional sports. The contract offer and new job would have quantified Billy’s success as a GM and put him in a league of his own.
But Billy turned down the offer.
Billy realized that his true motivation the whole time wasn’t winning a World Series or making as much money as possible, though those were both high goals. His daughter Casey was his true motivation. Billy only gets to see Casey every so often because she lives with his ex-wife. But the scenes with Billy and Casey are some of the only moments in the film where things slow down. No one is having high-intensity arguments about baseball or having high-leverage trade discussions. It’s just a man and his daughter picking out a new guitar or eating ice cream. It’s obvious that Billy has spent enough time in baseball to know how quickly it can all just be taken away. He’s learned to appreciate the little things.
He realizes how to stop and “just enjoy the show” as Casey puts it in the song she records for Billy on her new guitar. The movie has a beautiful ending as well. As Billy is driving around Oakland mulling his decision of whether to stay in Oakland or uproot his life and go to Boston, he puts in the CD Casey made for him. She says that no matter what decision he makes, she thinks he’s a great dad and continues on to sing the song The Show as the camera zooms in on Billy’s eyes tearing up due to the emotion of realizing what’s actually important to him.
Billy ends up staying in Oakland and keeping his job with the A’s. He realizes that success is more than just a big paycheck, especially since he “made one decision in my life based on money. And I swore I would never do it again.” Coming out of high school, he had the opportunity to go to college or choose the more lucrative option of becoming a professional baseball player. He chose the baseball player route and it came back to bite him. His early life decision was based on an imperfect idea of success. He could have gone to college, improved himself and his skills, and still gone pro later on. But he saw the big number on the baseball contract and chose that instead.
The second time around, Billy realized what he would be leaving if he changed coasts. Staying at a secure job where he could still have baseball success while being close to his daughter was more important than a big contract. He defined success as having a stable job while also being able to be in his daughter’s life and have her be in his. He ultimately chose success in his personal life over success in his professional life. And as Pete explained to him, he could still accomplish great things as GM of the A’s.
I love the arc Billy goes through and how it’s presented in the movie. Being able to understand why he made his decision adds so much to the film overall. He went from thinking success means money and professional accomplishment to knowing it means being in the best professional position to provide for those who mean the most to you.
Meanwhile, La La Land takes the opposite approach to success, much to the chagrin of a lot of people I know. It’s probably the more well-known movie, largely because of its infamous Oscars run. And while I at least partially dislike the ending, it’s for a different reason than most people.
The movie follows Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling). Mia is an up-and-coming actress in Hollywood who works at a coffee shop on the Warner Bros. lot while going to auditions in her spare time. Sebastian is a jazz enthusiast who spends his time playing the piano at restaurants… until he’s fired for playing too much free jazz instead of his given set list. Sebastian’s true goal is to open a jazz club where he can promote the kind of music and atmosphere he’s truly passionate about, while Mia wants to make it big in the movies.
They formally meet at a party where they find they have some real interpersonal and romantic chemistry. A couple days later, they meet back up and tell each other their goals and what they’re working towards professionally. Sebastian talks all about his love for jazz, why he’s passionate about it, and what he’d like to do to pursue it. Mia talks about how she grew up on classic Hollywood movies and would put on plays in her home at a very young age. They both have high goals, but the chemistry between them is undeniable.
During this interaction is where the big line is delivered. Sebastian inadvertently pronounces what will come to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. In reference to Hollywood, he says, “They worship everything and they value nothing.”
Mia and Sebastian’s relationship continues to flourish, but so do their careers. Sebastian joins a band where he gets to go on tour and finally make good money. They have a conversation about where they are at a fateful dinner date where they essentially tell each other their goals are just “more more more” when it comes to their career. Mia then eventually gets cast in a big movie which will take her to Paris for an extended period of time, effectively ending their relationship as they know it.
They have a conversation where they profess they will always love each other, but also acknowledge they don’t know what the future has in store in terms of their relationship. Sebastian tells Mia she needs to give her new acting role everything she’s got, all but telling her to put professional success ahead of personal success. They will always love each other, but they will love their careers more.
Five years later, we find out Sebastian has opened his jazz club, except he called it “Seb’s,” like Mia said he should instead of “Chicken on a Stick,” like he’d always wanted to. Mia, who’s now married with a daughter and a huge acting career, unexpectedly walks into Seb’s and to her surprise finds out who owns the club. As they make the eye contact that they never could have anticipated at the beginning of the night, across the screen flashes a fantasy sequence in which they get married, have a child, and Mia has her successful career. Noticeably missing from the sequence is Sebastian’s dream. It’s the implication that this was one of only two possible outcomes, with the other being real life.
Each of their dreams were too lofty to have them both achieved within a thriving relationship. It would have to be one goal sacrificed or the relationship sacrificed and they chose the relationship. Ultimately the two simply become footnotes in each other’s lives, though rather significant footnotes. They helped each other achieve their original goals of an acting career and a jazz club. A simple smile and nod to each other as the movie ends show that Mia and Sebastian each are happy with where they are and they appreciate the impact they had on each other’s lives. But they could have had the personal success that comes with a good relationship.
Neither of these movies really make a value judgement on where its characters end up. They tell you how the characters feel about their situation, but they leave it up to the audience to decide whether or not the characters made the right choice. After showing Billy finding peace with his decision, Moneyball, which is based on a true story, shows text on the screen which says the Red Sox went on to win the World Series just two years after Beane passed up the job, while he still hadn’t won one nine years later in Oakland. And La La Land shows that the characters are happy with their situation, but doesn’t say whether it is good that they are. After seeing just how good their relationship was, we are left wondering, it really worth giving up for professional success?
Ultimately, I side with Moneyball. I would find it more fulfilling personally to be in a situation where I have around me those who I truly love and care about. I don’t like the ending of La La Land, but not because I think it’s a romantic movie which automatically needs to have a happy ending. Rather, I’m saddened by the decision these characters make. I would like to see them choose happiness in their personal lives. Yes, professional success can lead to personal happiness, but I think putting your personal choice over your professional choice, the way Billy did, is the best decision.
But then again, I’m only in my mid-twenties. I haven’t been given many opportunities to achieve professional success the way the characters in these movies have. So ask me again in 15 years and maybe I’ll have a different outlook. But I really do highly doubt it. At my current age, I have achieved interpersonal happiness, which I equate with personal success. And I don’t see anything ever being worth more.