Last night I saw this movie, “Tracktown,” directed by Alexi Pappas and Jeremy Teicher. Pappas is an American runner who competed for Greece in last year’s Olympics (and won last year’s Shamrock Shuffle here in Chicago!); she stars in the movie and co-wrote and co-directed with Teicher, also her fiancé.
The movie follows track star and college student Plumb Marigold across three days as she tries to make the Olympic team in the 5K; squeaking by in the preliminaries, she’s forced by her coach to take a day off, finding herself at loose ends without the structure of training. So driven and professional in one area of her life, Plumb still has a little growing up to do: Should she keep living with her dad (Andy Buckley from “The Office”) or move out? What will she do if her training partner (Rebecca Friday) quits the team?
I’ve been looking forward to this movie for a while (I believe it premiered at LAST year’s Olympic trials) and not surprisingly, I liked it. It’s still rare to find movie about a young female athlete that takes her seriously but doesn’t take itself too seriously at the same time. It has a very winsome, sweet feeling underlined by Pappas’ voiceover, which delivers motivational quotes from everyone from Winston Churchill to fictional character Rocky Balboa. The movie does a great job of building a world around Plumb and her friends and family, such that one feels that every extra is out there having a full life offscreen. If you like movies like “The Spectacular Now” or “Adventureland,” you’ll probably like this one.
That said, it’s not for everyone. I think viewers will be either love-it-or-hate-it on Pappas’ performance; I liked her, but I also had the benefit of listening to interviews with Pappas beforehand and recognizing how different her character is from her. The movie is very insular in the way it treats distance running, and without knowing what little I know about that universe I probably would have been very confused. It all gives the movie a very cozy “for us” feeling -- I was super pleased with myself to spot Alysia Montaño in a cameo -- but I also hope the filmmakers expand their horizons with their next project.
So far Pappas has been balancing her movie-making and running careers; I hope she continues to do it. If it’s not playing near you, you can find "Tracktown” now on iTunes.
