By John Corrado

★★½ (out of 4)

The 2023 Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 7th to 17th, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here.

The title of Backspot refers to the position Riley (Devery Jacobs) holds on her high school cheerleading team. She treats cheerleading like an extreme sport, and bristles if anyone suggests otherwise, pushing her body to the limit in order to perform. When Riley and her girlfriend Amanda (Kudakwashe Rutendo) are both selected to join an elite squad called the Thunderhawks, they are pushed even further by the team’s icy head coach Eileen (Evan Rachel Wood), whom Riley starts trying to impress.

The feature directorial debut of D.W. Waterson, whose background is as a DJ, Backspot is a Canadian high school cheerleading drama that leans into its glossy music video aesthetic to follow a girl being pushed by her own ambition to succeed. Waterson keeps the film moving at a quick pace (including a kinetic training montage intercut with injury shots and Riley puking into a garbage can to show how hard she is pushing herself), but the predictable screenplay by Joanne Sarazen too often follows all of the expected sports movie beats.

It’s a slickly made film (almost too slick at times), but the story itself ends up feeling somewhat thin, with characters that often come across as surface deep. Aside from Riley’s nervous hair-pulling tics in response to her drive for perfection (with closeups on her balding eyebrows from her pulling at them), the character is somewhat two-dimensional, with aspects of her home life being hinted at but never really explored. Though this is refreshingly not a coming out story, with Riley’s sexuality being presented in a very matter-of-fact way right from the start.

Jacobs does carry the film with a physically demanding performance, leaning into her portrayal of someone facing internal pressure from needing to succeed. She is complimented by a nice supporting turn from Thomas Antony Olajide as the assistant coach who takes her under his wing. Despite its more cliched moments (Amanda also works at Cineplex, leading to several scenes that feel like a commercial for the movie theatre chain), Backspot is a fairly entertaining debut that shows stylistic promise for Waterson as a filmmaker, with their thumping EDM tracks populating the soundtrack.

Public Screenings: Friday, September 8th, 8:30 PM at TIFF Bell Lightbox; Monday, September 11th, 3:00 PM at TIFF Bell Lightbox; Friday, September 15th, 9:45 PM at Scotiabank Theatre