A Brutal Fairytale’ shreds BMX assumptions, finds hope on and off th…

As exciting and captivating as BMX (bicycle motocross) is, the sport — invented by Southern California kids in the 1970s — only has one iconic movie, the 1986 cult-classic “Rad,” which actually grossed less than its budget.

Serge Ou’s 2022 documentary “Ride: A Brutal Fairytale,” begins in Australia and Minnesota — featuring scenes not unlike the wild, fun enthusiasm of “Rad” — with future BMX world champion Sam Willoughby digging up his Aussie family’s backyard to build jumps as an elementary school kid and his eventual wife, Alise, taking up BMX on the other side of the world with her parents’ support as a young child, too.

Ou brilliantly captures the enthralling, and dangerous, energy of BMX from the film’s beginning, with shots of races under Alise’s description of her beloved sport: To her, BMX is “trying to be technically perfect while people are bumping and jostling, trying to find their spot in the pack. The room for error is very little, because if you fall off, you’re done. The gate drops and it’s just a burst of speed and you’re giving it absolutely everything you’ve got.”

It’s remarkable how Ou simultaneously lets each Willoughby describe their early immersion and rise to international success in BMX, while explaining what’s special about the sport to the uninformed viewer, as dramatic BMX scenes and childhood footage play.

Like skateboarding, BMX is an extreme sport that many pass off as kooky, eccentric, even lacking a need for skill or athleticism. Ou’s on-screen tale of Sam and Alise Willoughby shreds those assumptions, detailing the many years of challenging training each had to engage in — from very young ages — in order to compete with the best riders in the world when they became teenagers, and then adult professionals.

Sam, in particular, displays ridiculous upper-body strength in footage of his multiple world-championship wins, lunging himself and his bicycle forward while soaring through the air and joyfully leaving his opponents behind.

“There was nothing gonna stop him,” Sam’s father says over footage of Sam destroying the competition as a young man, winning every BMX accolade imaginable, and falling in love with Alise, who went from a young girl winning trophies bigger than she was to experiencing a few devastating crashes just after beginning international competition.

“There might be chaos on the track, but you’ve gotta avoid it,” Alise says at one point while describing BMX, but it turned out to be the chaos, or at least disillusion, in Sam’s head — after a lackluster, confusing performance at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil — that may have led to a fateful crash during a training ride in California.

He felt disoriented. He flipped backward. He screamed out, “I can’t feel my legs!” over and over and was helicoptered to a hospital. Alise, then his fiancee, flew to his bedside along with his parents and his brother.

Soon “he was pale and skinny and he just wasn’t himself,” Alise says in Ride. “If you could depict depression, it was him.”

The tragic accident left Sam a tetraplegic, forcing him to face a different kind of training, along with Alise, who never gave up on him or their relationship. Although during his depression and self-doubt she gave him an ultimatum: “Either accept me being here or shut up.”

Having lost her mother to cancer just a few years before Sam’s accident, she very plainly explained to Sam that if her dad had a chance to get her mother back, but in Sam’s state, “He’d do it in a heartbeat.”

The conclusion of “Ride” is an inspiration, with Alise finding the strength, after Sam’s accident, to become a world champion and Sam working as hard to fulfill his promise to stand at the couple’s wedding ceremony, and walk with Alise down the aisle, as he’d worked to become a BMX star.

It’s a must-see for people who love sports, but also just for anyone who wonders what love and faith can do.

Ride: A Brutal Fairytale

What: U.S. premiere, Australia feature documentary, 2022, 97 minutes

When: 6 p.m. Saturday

Where: Grace Commons Church, 1820 15th St., Boulder

Who: Film subjects Sam and Alise Willoughby will appear in person

More info: biff1.com