The sunlight on Los Angeles seems unusually gray and silent in “The Way Back”, located largely in the remote coastal neighborhood of San Pedro, where, in the late 1920s, houses fell into the ocean. Although “The Way Back” takes place in the present, a feeling of disorderly life permeates this hard-wired studio film, which has the outward signs of an inspiring sports drama but is mainly a recovery film. The star, Ben Affleck, was open to drawing on his own experiences with drinking for the role.
As “The Way Back” begins – with a low clamor of drilling and trucks before the first shot – Affleck’s character, Jack, works on a construction site. He is already immersed in alcoholism, keeping a dedicated place in his shower for a can of beer. His wife (Janina Gavankar), from whom he separated, uses his sister (Michaela Watkins) as an intermediary. Jack is given anger.
Then an unexpected opportunity arises: Father Devine (John Aylward), who runs the Catholic high school where Jack was once a basketball star, informs him that the coach has had a heart attack. Will Jack step in to help the team, which hasn’t played in the playoffs since he was a student?
In a toned sequence, Jack repeats saying no as he pours beer after the beer from his fridge. Then the film, in one of several unexpected elisions, exceeds his yes. he just shows up at work. And for a while, coaching seems to help him control his alcohol consumption.
By gender convention, Jack is responsible for bringing discipline to a heterogeneous group. He sees a potential team captain at Brandon (Brandon Wilson), the taciturn son of a once promising player (T.K. Carter), Jack remembers. He finds a friendly colleague in the assistant coach (Al Madrigal). And although Jack’s salty language and young men ‘s encouragement of brutality – “I will not coach a team that has been overworked,” he told them – may be questionable as a coach, the team improves and the hard edges of Jack help “The Way Back” avoids a feeling of impeccable uplift.
The film is directed by Gavin O’Connor, whose drama of mixed martial arts “Warrior” (2011) is also full of sand and a sense of belonging. Based on a script by Brad Ingelsby, O’Connor finds ways to keep viewers subtly off guard; just when you think “The Way Back” will turn into a Big Game movie, it becomes an addictive drama again (and then goes back).
The flight structure is accompanied by a giant and regrettable defect: the film retains a crucial part of the story in the first scenes to drop it like an anvil later. Since the revelation is known to the characters all the time, the decision to deploy it as a surprise is cheap and shameless – a glaring mistake in a film otherwise filled with perfectly executed plays.
The way back
Classified R. Excessive alcohol consumption and drunk driving. Duration: 1 hour 48 minutes.