23 October 2025: Spanish Tutor/LLA Zaira’s Film Review of McFarland
23 October 2025: Spanish Tutor/LLA Zaira: Film Review of McFarland
When the world seems to be erupting in chaos, historians analyze and compare the past with the present to explain any common ground of things that are going on. This same idea is expressed through social media. Recently influencers have shared films, shows, books and art work captioning them as “MUST WATCH” to catch the attention of their target audience because of how relevant these works of art are to us in the present even though they were released years ago. I tend to save a lot of these to check them out at a time when I am most available. The ones I regularly bump into are titled “Mexican/Hispanic films you should watch”, making it almost obligatory as someone under that identity to actually watch the film. Because it was based on a true story, I watched this film with an open mind wondering where it was going to take me because I had never heard of McFarland before.
In the movie, coach Jim White gets fired from his coaching job at a high school and is forced to move his family to a more affordable area. The White family moves to McFarland, California, a predominantly Mexican farmer community, quite ironic. The White family has some trouble fitting in because they can’t communicate with their neighbors, they aren’t in sync with the routines of the McFarland community, and they were the only white family in the town. When Jim begins to work as a physical education teacher at the high school almost 100% of the students are Hispanic, though his students are fluent in English they tease him and call him “Blanco” to mock his race and name at the same time. On a drive back home, Jim notices some of his students running in between the fields from school to their house and is fascinated by how fast they move. He catches them a couple times on weekends as well when the students are working at the fields and on school days he begins to time them on how fast they run during class. As Jim gets to know his students he tries to win them over into being interested in doing cross country. If there is one way Jim thinks he can help his students out is through what he knows best, which is coaching. Jim did this in a selfless act as a way to help his students find their own potential and lead them through a better path in the future.
Growing up, I have watched a couple of films that touch on the Hispanic struggles like the life of Mexicans in the U.S in the film Bajo La Misma Luna, or true stories of how war affected children and communities in El Salvador like in Voces Inocentes. It is not every day when you see a film where the stereotypes are flipped yet McFarland, USA was that story of hope that demonstrates that when both sides of the spectrum unify, truly the sky is the limit. McFarland, USA was directed by New Zealand director Niki Caro, who also directed Disney’s Mulan. This movie is streaming on Disney+ but it can also be found through YouTube, Fandango, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play Movies, and Apple TV.