Once again sports film are very formulaic and often not worth the time. This one is a bit more promising, being less of a sports film than a personal redemption one about a one-time sports star turned coach. Unfortunately while it’s not bad, it’s not really that good. Oddly enough once you realize that the main character’s depression stems from the loss of a child, it starts to look like an inferior version of Manchester by the Sea, which of course starred Ben’s brother Casey Affleck.
Jack Cunningham is a miserable alcoholic who was once a basketball star in high school but now spends all his time drinking, even at his construction job. He is surprised when his old school asks him to come back to be a coach for the failing team. Though reluctant, he agrees and starts putting the team into shape. In particular, he identifies one particular player, Brandon, as being talented and encourages him to become team captain despite his being an introvert. He also exhorts the team to be more aggressive to make up for their lack of physical size, which goes against the school’s values somewhat. Jack continues to struggle with his alcoholism however. When he and his ex-wife meet some friends together, we learn that they had a son who died from cancer and Jack has never been able to move past the loss.
As I noted, this isn’t really a basketball film even if it looks like it might be one as the focus lies entire on the one character of Jack. There are as many scenes of him drinking alcohol and there are of the high school kids playing basketball. As a deep character study of depression and personal loss, this has more promise than just another sports film but as I noted it seems like an inferior copy of Manchester by the Sea. For one thing, Ben Affleck struggles to deliver the heavyweight acting required of the role. But in my opinion, director’s Gavin O’Connor main mistake here is that he has no interest in developing any other character as a real person apart from Jack himself. This is most obvious in the case of Angela, Jack’s ex-wife. Angela suffers as much from the loss of their child as Jack but the film doesn’t care about that and neither does Jack. Her character exists only so that Jack has someone to play off of. In a good film like Manchester by the Sea, even the supporting characters have roles that are meaty enough that the actors get awards. Here the film seems to be actively trying to avoid giving anyone apart from Jack the spotlight.
Apart from this, it is rather surprising to me how seriously Americans take their sports, even at this high school level. They keep detailed statistics, are able to formulate and deploy complex tactics, perform video analysis of past games, etc. It’s pretty crazy by our standards. I suppose that this is the inevitable result of having so much money riding on it. I also note that the film presumes quite a bit of basketball knowledge on the part of the viewer. Would someone who doesn’t regularly watch basketball understand what a full-court defense means?
In any case, while this film isn’t bad, it’s not anything special either. It serves as a reminder of the divide between a film that means well and tries hard but is so limited and narrow in its perspective and a film that is truly excellent with richly complex psychologies in every one of its characters and multiple overlapping themes.