TEAM MARCO
A poignant celebration of grandparents, best suited to discerning adults.
Should You Watch It?
TEAM MARCO offers a warm, funny, and poignant celebration of family, grandparents, friendship, and the training of children. Marco’s growing relationship with his Italian grandfather gives the story joyful moments as well as heartrending ones. Its moral center is clear: children need time with family, real friendships, outdoor play, and the best traditions passed down through generations.
The movie also includes positive Christian references, including church, a Christian funeral, Christian crosses, repentance, and forgiveness. But two strong Jesus profanities, other obscenities, light profanity, and references to grandparents who have died keep this from being a family-suitable recommendation under the film’s −2 rating.
If you are a discerning adult or older viewer, TEAM MARCO is worth your time; for children and young teens, choose something else.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESEleven-year-old Marco moves from Manhattan to Long Island with his divorced mother, Anna. When his widowed grandfather, Nonno, comes to stay with them, Marco must share his room with him.
Marco is absorbed in a video game created by his father, while Nonno wants him to get outside, make friends, and discover the old-world game of bocce. A summer of clashing priorities soon becomes a challenge involving family, friendship, and a team of middle-schoolers.
Is It Any Good?
Four stars means the source finds TEAM MARCO an inspiring, funny, and emotionally affecting family drama. The film is praised for its morally uplifting worldview, joyful moments, heartrending scenes, and touching treatment of family relationships.
Its strongest achievement is the way it celebrates grandparents, friendship, outdoor play, and time-honored family traditions. The story also offers an uplifting ending.
The Worldview
TEAM MARCO presents a strong moral worldview with light Christian and redemptive references. It celebrates family, the importance of grandparents, friendship, proper training for children, repentance, forgiveness, and honoring positive social and family traditions. Marco and his mother honor the memory of his grandmother, while Christian funeral imagery, church references, Christian crosses, and a Virgin Mary statue appear in the story.
The film also encourages limiting children’s time on electronic devices and helping them develop friendships in person rather than living primarily online. It presents change as inevitable while still urging viewers to preserve the best traditions handed down by grandparents and great-grandparents.
One philosophical moment stresses feelings over head knowledge. The source describes this as Romantic in the philosophical sense, though it occurs within the movie’s overall Christian, moral worldview. The film’s divorced parents argue, Marco’s father is initially superficial, and Marco himself can be disobedient and disrespectful before changing as the story moves forward.
The movie’s emphasis on friendship and family echoes Scripture’s call to “encourage one another and build one another up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements
Very strong moral worldview with some light Christian, redemptive references to church and Christian crosses and a Virgin Mary statue and an explicit scene promoting repentance and forgiveness, with celebrations of family, the importance of grandparents, friendship (man tells his grandson, “Life is nothing without friends”), the proper training of children, and honoring family and positive social/family traditions, a Romantic moment where a line of dialogue stresses feelings opposed to head knowledge
Foul Language
One “a**” obscenity, two strong Jesus profanities, six light exclamatory profanities, and one bleeped obscenity
Violence
No real violence but there are a couple visits to a hospital where a character is seriously ill, and some references to death
Sex
No sex
Nudity
Upper male nudity in one scene when a man takes off his shirt in the summer heat and lies down on a park bench, plus some home movie images of people at a pool where males wear swimming trunks and women wear bathing suits
Alcohol Use
No alcohol use
Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse
Two or three brief scenes where an older man smokes cigarettes;
Miscellaneous Immorality
Divorced man and woman argue, boy’s father is a superficial person, but he’s there at the end when the boy needs him, and 11-year-old boy turning 12 in the movie is sometimes disobedient and disrespectful but changes as the story moves forward.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
Marco is pulled between electronic entertainment and time with family and friends. What helps you use technology wisely while making room for people?
1 Corinthians 6:12 · Philippians 2:4The film celebrates grandparents and family traditions. Which traditions help your family remember what is good and worth preserving?
Deuteronomy 6:6–7 · Psalm 78:4Marco’s story includes repentance and forgiveness. Why are both needed when someone has done wrong?
Proverbs 28:13 · Ephesians 4:32The movie honors the memory of someone who has died. How can grief and hope exist together?
Psalm 34:18 · 1 Thessalonians 4:13–14The Final Word
TEAM MARCO is a joyful, touching celebration of grandparents, friendship, and family traditions, but its strong profanity and references to death make it unsuitable for children and young teens. For discerning adults and older viewers, it is WORTH THE TRIP — ADULTS ONLY. For a younger family, consider.
