A TELUS original, based in the west coast, Curl Power follows the 4K girls, a high school team of Curlers whose aspirations to make the curling nationals is only matched by their efforts to figure out who they are and how to navigate life as they head towards the end of high school. The film follows them as they fight as underdogs to make their curling dreams come true while also navigating love, family, social media and self-esteem as teenagers.
The biggest strength (and weakness) of this film is the amount of coverage that the film had of these girls. After following them for three years, it seems clear that director Josephine Anderson had so many stories to tell about the lives of these youth that she felt she couldn’t commit to just one. As a result, we get the beginning of a lot of interesting ideas and conflicts that show up in their lives. The girls deal with the graduation of one of their team members, a break-up before a big tournament, a mom battling cancer, self-confidence, social media, the intensity of their practice schedule, the obsession with winning, the pressure of being the children of Olympic curlers, friendships between each other and friends as well as part time jobs. All of these facets of their life are captured with ‘fly on the wall’ honesty but it never focuses long enough for one of these ideas to have a substantial impact.
The film stays interesting because of the diversity of coverage that it gets but it never does anything with the filmmaking, sound or editing to really create an interesting film. As the film follows all five of the girls that make up the team, it really seems to struggle to find unique and impactful moments to capture. While there is some impactful and honest interviews from the girls, it is never explored or visually shown in a way that makes the audience think deeper about the issues in their lives that are presented.
Curl Power is playing at HotDocs ’24. For more information, click here.
