At first glance, Disney Pixar’s Win or Lose looks very similar to the popular award-winning films Inside Out and Inside Out 2, centering on the emotions of tweens and teens and their stories as their softball championship game approaches. Yet, it doesn’t just focus on the children on the team but also their parents and the adults around them as they deal with real-life problems like love, heartbreak, dating, parenthood, and still trying to figure things out. Spoilers follow.
Directed by Carrie Hobson and Michael Yates, Win or Lose examines the lives and psyches of different people going through situations or traumas and how they all coincide. The film follows the Pickles, a co-ed middle school softball team, in the week leading up to their championship game. From the coach’s anxious daughter who wants to make her father proud to the guarded and stern umpire, everyone is connected in some way, and we see the championship from their point of view.
Some episodes and characters worked, but others fell because it left me wondering why this character was the focus for that episode rather than the people around them. For example, one of the players, Taylor, gets into a relationship with another player. Still, the episode centers on her little brother, Ira, who falls into the wrong crowd when his big sister ignores him. Ultimately, it’s all connected as the wrong crowd affects everyone on the team, but why not have one of the troublemakers be the lead then so that we could understand their perspective?
For the most part, Win or Lose is heartwarming when the stories connect immediately, like one episode on a player’s life, followed by her mother’s perspective in the next one. It ties things nicely rather than having to wait for all the other episodes to air to have it all conclude and make sense. In this case, the series will release the first two episodes on February 19 and release two episodes weekly.
The most poignant episodes were between the mother and daughter and their misunderstanding. Believing her mother to be incompetent, the daughter had to grow up quickly and had a lot of responsibility to take care of her school life, home life, and her love for softball. In reality, her single mother was simply trying her best to keep up appearances that everything was okay when they weren’t. It all begins to feel real, with the animation beautifully displaying how one feels inside on the outside for viewers to understand. When one character feels a lump of anxiety growing on top of them, the animation — literally — shows that sweat/tumor as a character. Another character is seen walking on walls because they don’t fully feel in control of their surroundings. The brilliant animation offers different artsy mediums (crayons, sketches, gaming) and various lighting sources where it feels like each episode has its own animation theme.
The series, which has been in development for many years, was initially celebrated for its diversity, with several lead characters being people of color. Some characters with disabilities are also present in the show. Yet, it was recently announced that the transgender storyline would be removed from one of the later episodes. Disney revealed they “recognized that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline.”
Though the series mainly focuses on the young players on the team, the story feels a bit mature for the younger audiences that Disney Pixar typically caters to. The situations feel heavy and, despite the cutesy animation, very dark. It follows the same vein as Inside Out 2 and Turning Red, a coming-of-age story of what it means to grow up – and adults are still trying to figure it out (including parents). It’s unfortunate that the change had to be made — as a simple mention of a character being transgender wouldn’t have affected the plot, but rather, given an inclusive moment to this “coming-of-age” series.
The overall tone and plot are good, but the story loses its momentum as it waits for everything to connect by the end of the season. While some stories are pretty forgettable, a few are worth the wait.
Disney Pixar’s Win Or Lose premieres its first two episodes on February 19, with two weekly episodes, on Disney+.
Rating: 3/5
