"Toe to Toe" Contemporary Film Review (Costanzo p. 299)

Click HERE to watch the trailer for "Toe to Toe"

I saw the movie “Toe to Toe” at the Cleveland Film Fest. This movie was about twp girls in their senior year of high school at a prep-school. Jessie had just transferred to a new school to escape the effects of her promiscuity at her previous school. She befriended Tosha, who lived in a rough part of town, and invested all of her time, energy, and hope into getting into Princeton. The friendship between the two girls soon fell apart, because of a boy. The rest of their senior year was spent fighting with each other.

Many girls can relate to the falling out of a friendship because of a boy. As soon as Jessie found out that Tosha liked this boy, she pounced on him. I’ve seen this exact storyline happen with my own eyes at my own high school to a friend of mine (in a much more innocent way, if that’s possible). This made me feel more sympathetic to Tosha. Throughout the film, it becomes clear that because of Jessie’s lack of guidance from her always absent mother, she was always seeking attention elsewhere. However, my sympathy still belonged to poor Tosha, because she was the one that was betrayed by a friend.

At times, the camera work was quite strange to me. At one point, the camera did a close-up on someone’s eyeball and I could not understand the purpose. In one scene, a doctor was telling Jessie that she had Chlamydia, but the camera focused on a close-up of Jessie’s emotionless face. Again, the purpose was not entirely clear to me. I think at that point in the film we had learned enough about Jessie to know that she was not phased. I would like to have seen the doctor’s reaction to Jessie’s reaction.

The actors were wonderful. I think that Jessie, played by Louisa Krause, was casted perfectly. She looked like an average girl that I would have seen walking around Kent’s campus. There was something familiar about her face, but when I looked her up at IMDB.com, she was not in anything that I would recognize her in. I think that I just recognized her as an average American girl with issues. Tosha, played by Sonequa Martin, was also casted perfectly. She looked tough, but there was a very feminine vulnerability to her (which was her Tosha's personality). All parts were played tremendously well, because I believed every second of this film.

Even though I think that this is a fairly common plot, it was very compelling. I often see or read about inter-racial friendships (usually rich white friend and a poor black friend), but there were so many other conflicts besides the black/white conflict. According to IMDB.com, the movie's tagline is: "Winning isn't always black and white." In Jessie's case, her workaholic mother was always out of town and often ignored Jessie and her need for guidance and stability. Tosha was afraid of the people in her neighborhood, but often tried to appear as a tough "street" girl to her privileged friends at prep-school. I was so invested in this plot, that I didn't look at my cell-phone at all to even check the time. There were too many conflicts to be resolved that I couldn't look away from the screen.

The many different conflicts were representative of the many different themes in this movie. It is in my opinion that besides the obvious black/white conflict, money is one of the main themes. Jessie and her mother had plenty of money, but not the happiness. Tosha's family did not have money either, which caused tension between Tosha and her mother because Tosha went to a prep-school and wanted to go to Princeton. However, Tosha had guidance from her grandmother, who loved her very much. Family dynamic was also a theme larger than money. Tosha, her mother, her brother, and her brother's child's mom all had a bond, but they fought often and forgot about each other, because of pre-occupation with themselves. Promiscuity and ego of teenagers is another issue. Many teenage characters smoked marijuana, drank alcohol, and engaged in sexual activity (usually with Jessie). This struck me as frightening, because I may be teaching students who are living this way.

This film was a drama. The film had many emotional themes and presented dramatic issues (such as sex, drugs and betrayal). It is my opinion that the viewer becomes more emotionally invested in a drama, because of the serious issues that are common in our society. According to filmsite.org, Academy Awards seem to be given to more Dramas than any other genre.

The film represented many different racial groups. Rashid was Arabic, and therefore, not supposed to be dating. However, he was engaging in sexual activity with Jessie (as well as illegal drug use) while pursuing Tosha. This led me to believe his ethnic group was being portrayed as suppressed and rebelling against the suppressed desires. African-American in the film were portrayed in a way which I had never seen. Many of the black characters had plenty of money, but they valued being "street." Men in this film were portrayed in the most negative of ways. They were all users. There was a very graphic scene at the end showing Jessie's point of view while all of the men in her life used her (and some taped it and took pictures). Even Tosha's brother was portrayed negatively, because he smoked marijuana and forgot about his child while the child's mother was working. The film also slightly touched on homosexuality, but not enough for evaluate the portrayal.

I was most challenged by the ideology that the African-American characters valued being "street." Tosha was beat up near her home one day by a local group of girls, but when she went to her school, all of the girls praised her for being in a fight (which Tosha claimed she won). I was shocked by this, but I also challenge the idea that black teens appreciate fighting.

From this movie, the most valuable lesson I learned is that when I teach, I need to know my students. Even the most driven students (like Tosha) have a lot to think about that will distract them from school. As a teacher, I need to look for warning signs in students like Tosha and Jessie. In Jessie's case, if I knew a students like her, and knew what was going on with her, I would give her more attention in class and try to develop a relationship with her in which I give her some of the attention that she was seeking with her mother. I realized from this film that teaching will not be easy, since school is not the only thing that will be on my students' minds. I am glad I had the opportunity to see this film and make this realization.