You can easily see what drew the documentarian Tanya Doyle to the word of competitive cheerleading. Sports docs have tension automatically built in. Someone is going to win. Someone else is going to fall at the last hurdle. And the notion of such an inherently American activity taking place in Galway is a draw in itself. It’s like coming across yak racing in Carlow.
Sure enough, Eat/Sleep/Cheer/Repeat proves a relaxing watch that makes good use of largely charming characters. There are a few shaky elements in the human pyramid, but it just about stays aloft throughout its handy running time.
The star of the film is a nervous coach named Hilton – a fellow so committed you can forgive him the galloping Americanisms. Do other sports here now use “worlds” for “world championship”? Probably. The constant abbreviation of “cheerleading” to “cheer” also rubs me wrongly, but that is almost certainly my own problem. At any rate, there is much discussion of how “cheer” builds character as the team work towards “worlds” in Florida.
There is pleasure to be had in the juxtaposition of this glossy New World activity – bronzer is a vital part of the aesthetic – with an environment of rainy morning drives and chocolate biscuits. The ever-roving camera gets a good sense, early on at least, of the physical demands on the contestants. Then a crunch. We are already used to documentaries in which, as the action reaches early 2020, a sudden global complication asserts itself. Here the film stumbles a little.
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One of the families baulks at vaccination, and as a result a contestant’s efforts to qualify for the worlds prove to be in vain. It may be nobody else’s business, but one still yearns to hear a little more about the family’s reasoning.
The documentary also feels a bit hurried in its final moment. Something is achieved (no spoilers) and, in a whisp, everything is over.
Eat/Sleep/Cheer/Repeat nonetheless gets by admirably on its commitment to character and its embrace of humanity. There are no villains here, and such is the warmth of the piece that only an utter cad would wish it otherwise.
Eat/Sleep/Cheer/Repeat opens in cinemas on Friday, May 17th
