Movie Breakdown: The Way Back (Noah)
Pre-Screening Stance:
Gavin O’Connor directed Miracle and Warrior, two of the great blue-collar sports films of all time. His newest is about an alcoholic Ben Affleck trying to save himself and the season of a high school basketball team, and I am all in.
Post-Screening Ramble:
Very quickly, before you start reading this review, disabuse yourself of the notion that The Way Back is a full-on sports film. It is not. It is a film featuring sports – the plucky underdogs of Bishop Hayes Catholic – and featuring the sort of redemptive atmosphere only the competitive drive of athletics can truly foster. Ben Affleck plays Jack Cunningham, a former high school basketball great whose life, for a variety of reasons, has turned into an alcoholic slog. When he’s offered the opportunity to coach his former team – now a bottom-dwelling collection of small, mildly talented players – he has to pick himself up, expunge the booze and get to work. Yes, it sounds like a basketball flick, a real pump your fist as the team, and Jack, figure their shit out and rise up the rankings of the league, and of life. Again though, it isn’t. The basketball aspects of the film – the comedic assistant coach, the wealthy rival team, the quiet kid who becomes a leader – they’re all here, they’re just peripheral. This is a film about Jack Cunningham’s crippling addiction to alcohol and what has led him to picking the splinters out of the bottom of the barrel. Everything else is just very well-appointed scenery. O’Connor doesn’t, for the most part, let any of the side pieces suffer because of the laser focus on the Jack’s fall from grace and the story that follows (though I could’ve used more of his beautiful, gritty take on the game), but this is a film about a very angry man moving through life. That life just includes a stint as a high school basketball coach. This is a drama about alcoholism, an inverted sports film where the failures of the characters take precedence over the successes of the sports team. Affleck gets so much flack just for being Ben Affleck, but a character like Jack Cunningham – a former superstar gone to seed – is a money spot for him, and he shines in this role. The character could’ve just been the angry, drunken asshole, but Affleck folds in the layers of pain, the micro-traumas that have brought him to this point. He’s brash and angry but the emotional outbursts are steeped in real pain. O’Connor’s direction here is subtle and, frankly, amazing, tying together the story of Cunningham through small, simple conversations and allusions to the past. Let me recap: The Way Back isn’t a sports film, it’s a drama with sports as the set dressing. What is though is a wonderful, inspiring flick anchored by a strong performance from an actor who hasn’t had one in a while.
One Last Thought:
There’s a speech in the middle of the film right when Affleck’s Cunningham gets riled up as a coach for the first time that got me pumping my fist. I turned to my girlfriend and whispered, “I love basketball. And I love this movie.”
Another Last Thought:
Al Madrigal (who I only know from late night comedy news) is wonderful in this film – a morally grounded humor to contrast Affleck’s darkness dwelling soul. He deserves more.
