Here’s a great show that involves sports but isn’t a sports film per se.
Red Oaks is set against a background of tennis at a 1980s Jersey country club. What I love about it is the way it marries a kind of Upstairs Downstairs relations-among-the-guest-and-staff theme with a coming-of-age story of a young man pursuing his passion, not just a job.
This is a big one, as the protagonist watches his father slog through a career as a tax accountant that gives him little pleasure but pays the bills. One IMDB commentator made the extremely astute observation that, “…the ‘80s kid…wanted more than the war generation. They not only wanted dreams but wanted to go after them while their parents just sighed.”
How true it is…