48 grown men, one plastic ball, zero dignity. Midlife crisis just got competitive.
Walla Walla Wiffle is an annual one day round-robin wiffleball tournament wherein 48 men from all over the country gather in Eastern Washington to play wiffleball. Most of the participants are in their 30s or 40s, married with children, highly educated and well-employed. The film documents the joy they take in being able to revert to the simplicity of their youth, if only for a day, while also showing the conflicts that arise from the inescapable responsibilities that come with jobs, relationships and families.
Direction
Sickels finds poetry in grown men arguing about plastic
Editing
Seven minutes of pure narrative economy
Production
Eastern Washington as unlikely sacred ground
Director
Robert Sickels
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Sickels teaches at Whitman College in Walla Walla — this started as a love letter to local weirdness that accidentally became universal.
The wiffleball itself was invented in 1953 Connecticut; this film argues its true purpose is midlife therapy.
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