The Way Back: Ben Affleck stars in possibly the saddest 'redemptive' sports movie ever
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B-minus
If you scoured the review blurbs of the scores of movies about coaches who find redemption teaching teams of losers to win, you’d probably find all of them referred to as, “the feel-good movie of the year.”
Until now.
Between drinks, Coach Cunningham (Ben Affleck) convinces a team of losers to learn to win
Let it be known that The Way Back – in which Ben Affleck plays a drunk who once walked away from basketball glory and is offered a chance at redemption when his old coach has a heart attack – is possibly the most melancholy sports movie ever made.
It is a hodgepodge of things it wants to be, and in every case, it starts to do them quite well before starting to do something else.
Construction worker Jack Cunningham drinks. He drinks at work, he drinks at his local bar and is helped home every night by his barkeep pal, he drinks at home, he swigs vodka before walking with a beer in his hand into a backyard family dinner thrown by his concerned sister (Michaela Watkins). All we find out in the whole first half hour is that he drinks, and that he recently split with his wife Angie (Janina Gavankar).
In fact, the closest to a truly artful scene director Gavin O'Connor gives us in The Way Back comes when Jack gets that coaching offer at a Catholic high school. In a scene of fast cuts, he spends a whole night practicing different ways to say no, downing a beer with each one until the fridge is empty.
Jack, it seems, was once the most coveted high school hoops star in the state. And now he’s this. Why he’s this is a tricky thing for a Hollywood movie to tackle. Without getting into details, there are father issues (explained away in a short conversation in a car with one of his players) and a devastating family tragedy that is revealed to us slowly.
With these ingredients, when away from the court, The Way Back is one sad wallow of a movie. I’m talking Manchester by the Sea sad (to reference a movie with yet another Affleck).
But then, there’s also a team to save. That quarter of the movie plays traditionally and quite well. O’Connor (Miracle, Warrior) is a former college athlete himself. So, he’s able to make it sound plausible in sports terms that an undersized team with a 1-9 record and some talent could, with the right defence and set plays, turn itself around and make the playoffs (think the current Raptors with their “bigs” injured).
With all that, it behooves us to get to know the players in the cracks in the narrative between binges. There is a huge emotional shopping list in this movie, which means a lot of perfunctory character development. The main player in this regard is Brandon (Brandon Wilson), a point guard with tons of talent, no confidence and, yes, father issues.
The Way Back is such a strange twist on the sports movie genre that “the big game” takes place two-thirds into the movie, leaving a whole last act of more sadness and tragedy, and, some sort of redemption.
The Way Back is different, which doesn’t always mean better. It can be appreciated for what it attempts to tackle. But fans of the genre should know what to expect before buying a ticket.
The Way Back. Directed and co-written by Gavin O’Connor. Starring Ben Affleck, Janina Gavankar and Brandon Wilson. Opens wide, Friday, March 6.