Slamdance: “Standout: The Ben Kjar Story”
Sports can act as a great unifier. A means of people coming together for a specific cause or an avenue for an individual to build self-confidence. More than just a game or hobby, sports can be life-changing. Standout: The Ben Kjar Story is one of those life-altering sports stories. As much as the documentary is an underdog tale, it’s also a reflection on how the things that make someone “different” can actually be their greatest strengths. Standout: The Ben Kjar Story will have its world premiere at the 2025 Slamdance Film Festival in Los Angeles on February 23.
Ben Kjar was born with Crouzon syndrome, a rare craniofacial anomaly that impacts the development of the skull and facial bones. As a young child, Ben underwent multiple surgeries in an attempt to relieve pressure on his brain. Understandably, his doctors recommended that he avoid contact sports like football. Ben’s parents never treated him differently and encouraged him to pursue whatever goals he uncovered for himself. When one of his older brothers became involved with wrestling, Ben found his purpose and pushed himself with the goal to become an NCAA All-American wrestler.
“They were incredible cuddlers, but they were not good coddlers,” Ben remarks about his parents, who provide the strong foundation for the man he would become. Wrestling is a brutal sport. It’s you and another person on a mat, dueling for dominance in a match that is as mental as it is physical. For as many wins as Ben would rack up in his career, and there will be a lot, there are also moments of extreme devastation. While difficult to endure, it’s these moments where he finds out what kind of competitor he is. It’s one thing to be a gratuitous winner, but another thing entirely to be able to lose with grace. One of the most-repeated sentiments in the documentary is how much Ben cares about the greater picture as well as his own triumphs. For everything he achieves, he always reaches behind him to pull others up with him.
Remember Films
Standout: The Ben Kjar Story benefits from a plethora of first-person footage from not only Ben’s childhood, but also his high school and college wrestling matches. Instead of merely hearing the stories of Ben’s wins, the audience gets to experience them firsthand. Those who don’t follow the world of collegiate wrestling have no idea what Ben’s outcomes will be in each of these matches. Many audience members, like myself, may not even fully understand how one earns points in the sport or what a regulation match looks like. Standout: The Ben Kjar Story gives the audience a primer in the form of a vintage-stylized infomercial presented on what looks like one of the TVs teachers would wheel into classrooms in the early 2000s when they didn’t feel like teaching that day. Throughout the documentary, there are nice touches from Ben’s own adolescence that ground the film in the ’80s and ’90s aesthetic, frosted tips and all.
In addition to archival footage and photos, the documentary relies on reenactments, with Colton Fielding playing a younger version of Ben. Like Ben, five-year-old Fielding was born with Crouzon syndrome. While the documentary doesn’t necessarily need these reenactments, there’s something that feels full circle in allowing Ben to return to these moments of bullying as an adult. He can’t go back in time and care for the young kid he once was, but he can be a force and a beacon for the next generation, which is one of the main themes of Standout: The Ben Kjar Story. After his wrestling career, Ben turned to the life of a professional speaker, where he encourages audiences to chant “stand out” during his talks. Ben has embraced what it means to stand out for the better and imbued it with a sense of confidence that he works to impart to those around him.
Standout: The Ben Kjar Story is a straightforward documentary in style, but Ben is such a fun, charming subject that the film remains fresh. It’s as much a sports documentary as it is a reflection on how society treats people who don’t fit the ableist definition of “normal.” Standout: The Ben Kjar Story goes beyond the wrestling mat to the heart of sport to create a biography of someone who chose to stand out.
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