The Grizzlies, Edinburgh international Film Festival, Odeon

Based on a true story from 2004/05, this is your standard redemptive sports movie with an attention to background that gives it a depth the genre usually lacks.

Russ (Ben Schnetzer) has to spend a year teaching history in a remote Inuit town in northern Canada for a year, before he can get himself a 'proper' job in a 'decent' school.  He's brash, arrogant, preppy and dismissive of the advice he receives from resigned old hand Mike (Will Sasso) and concerned indigenous head teacher Janace (Tantoo Cardinal).  very soon he's lost any interest from the few students that still come to his classes, but is also starting to learn a bit more about the culture and problems of the community he's been placed in, helped by the smart interventions of his brightest pupil, Miranda (Emerald MacDonald).

For Russ the answer is sport, in his case lacrosse which has a thousand year history in North America.  After many trials and tribulations and cultural faux pas he gets a team together, inspires the kids and they get to go to the national championships in Toronto, bringing pride to themselves and their community.  So far so predictable.  What marks The Grizzlies out as a bit special is the treatment of the issues that dominate the lives of the people of the town.  The decline of traditional values, drink and drugs, the high suicide rate (the opening scene shows a young man walk into the wilderness to shoot himself, and there are other suicides during the course of the story), poverty, and a history of broken "white man's promises" combine to help Russ realise he knows nothing and that his team can  teach him far more than he can them.

Schnetzer does a good job in portraying the humbled Russ, but it's the performances of the locally recruited youngsters that stand out, especially the calm and controlled MacDonald.  The film ends with some facts about the subsequent lives of the real people portrayed on screen, with the real Russ staying on in the job for several years, and the The Grizzlies team still playing and forming an important part of the town's activities.  That it's also been well received by the Inuits themselves is as good a recommendation as I can make.