The Way Back

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I’m not the greatest fan of inspirational sports dramas, but I also never disliked one. They all follow this storytelling formula that everyone recognizes, but it’s always successful. The protagonist is a miserable human being due to some tragic past. He gets another shot at life, usually an underdog situation, and he ultimately overcomes whatever challenge is thrown at him, including his addictions if he has any. Everyone lives “happily ever after”, and the viewer leaves the theater with a smile because that’s how it makes us feel.

It’s incredibly easy to root for an underdog trying to raise its level and to reach something it never believed in. In The Way Back, the basketball team is awful, but Jack teaches them not only how to play better, but how to be a better team. Then, it’s just like the synopsis: a win here and there gets everyone back on track, and it’s very entertaining to watch these young kids “grow up” in every possible way. As a sportsman myself, several little details help me enjoy this type of movies even more.

However, it’s a straightforward variation of the same cliche, predictable story… until one point. There’s one genuinely surprising development I didn’t see coming. I don’t know if it was due to my “defenses being down” or if Gavin O’Connor and Brad Ingelsby really did a great job at hiding it until the right moment, but it definitely worked.

The lack of character-building regarding the secondary ones is probably my biggest issue aside from the formulaic screenplay. There’s one young kid that still has some sort of an arc, but it never gets the deserved consideration. It’s a very protagonist-centered film, and there’s nothing truly wrong with that, especially when Ben Affleck delivers one of his career-best performances. I left him for last because I do believe the whole movie succeeds due to his impressively captivating display....

The Way Back (2020) is a return to form for Ben Affleck following an aimless second half of the previous decade – specifically his ill-advised stint in the DC Universe. In this drama directed by Gavin O'Connor and written by Brad Ingelsby (co-writer of the excellent Out of the Furnace), Affleck plays Jack Cunningham, a former high school star basketball player turned alcoholic construction worker who reluctantly accepts a coaching job at his alma mater.

How do we know he's an alcoholic? Well, drinking beer in the shower is certainly not a good sign (and there are many others), but it’s mostly Affleck, who not only looks and sounds but for all intents and purposes is the part, turning in a cathartic, demon-exorcising performance.

The central portion of the film is by design an abridged version of every high school basketball movie ever made. It’s done competently, with a knowledge of and appreciation for the game of hoops, as well as a sense of humor, but it’s nevertheless an afterthought; it would also be a foregone conclusion, if the script had actually been leading up all along to that buzzer-beating, game-winning, hail Mary shot that shortly segues into a freeze frame of Jack’s triumphantly grinning mug.

Its Cinderella story – minus the fairytale happy ending – seems taken right out of many a Hollywood melodrama (because it actually is), but TWB is not – regardless of what All Movie or IMDb may tell you – a sports movie, nor is it about basketball like Hoosiers, or about inner city kids like Coach Carter; its scenes of on-court action and sideline banter, deftly choreographed and zestfully written and delivered but offering little new (other than comically pairing the Foulmouthed Coach with the catholic high school’s “team chaplain”), exist solely to make a point – and a very well made and well taken point it is.

This narrative shorthand serves an overarching character study into which the filmmakers have put quite a lot more thought and work, revolvi...