Lenny Cooke

In 2001 Lenny Cooke was rated the best high school basketball player in America, ahead of LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony. Then nothing happened. The documentary is assembled from two periods: raw footage shot at the time, and Cooke himself a decade later. The Safdies do not turn it into a fall narrative; they show how the decisions were made, the bad advice, the rush to turn professional, the interests of the people around him. Its most striking passage is the closing scene, where the young Cooke and the older Cooke are placed in the same frame. It works less like a sports documentary than like a film about time. Who it is for: viewers who like sports documentaries that refuse to become spectacle. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a motivational story, since this is the opposite.