A SLAM DUNK
Affleck’s portrayal of an alcoholic basketball coach avoids the clichés to tell a compelling story
You might think you know this movie. Heck, you might think you’ve seen this movie. You know the drill: A troubled alcoholic who’s white, male and pushing 50 — let’s call him Ben Affleck — starts coaching a rag-tag highschool basketball team, and is set on a path to redemption by the innocent optimism of this young, multiracial group.
The Way Back isn’t that movie. It isn’t that simple, and it’s a damn sight better.
As written by Brad Ingelsby (Run All Night) and its director Gavin O’connor (The Accountant), The Way Back starts out like the saddest beer commercial in history. We see Affleck’s character, Jack Cunningham, drinking on his construction job. He drinks during his pickup truck drive home. He drinks in the shower, the can perched next to the shampoo on the caddy. He shows up (late) to his family’s Thanksgiving meal with an open beer in his hand.
Affleck looks haggard and paunchy, though perhaps not sickly enough for someone who can empty his fridge of beer in a single lonely evening. But the film makes a clever pivot halfway through to explain (but not excuse) his drinking, indicating it may be a recent issue.
Meanwhile, Jack gets an offer to coach the basketball team at his old high school, where decades earlier he was the star player. The team hasn’t had a championship year since, and the current crop of players is enthusiastic but weedy. And it turns out that despite all the other problems in his life, he’s a hella-good coach. While his courtside profanity troubles the assistant coach (Al Madrigal) and the chaplain at the Catholic school, there’s no denying he turns the team around.
Jack is a complicated character, and Affleck nails his emotional intricacies, whether dealing with his estranged wife (Janina Gavankar, who I wanted more of in this film) or hanging with his drinking buddies, who “set him up” at the bar and then help him stagger home at the end of the night. I forget the name of the joint, but I’m calling it Enablers.
The Way Back delivers an excellent portrait of a functioning alcoholic, with the caveat that “functioning” is always going to be a temporary state. Even as the team improves, Jack’s drinking doesn’t wane, and we know it’s only going to be a matter of time until a crisis takes him down.
The big game sequence, nail-bitingly tense even as it crosses the line into cliché, would in a simpler story end in a freeze-frame-fade-out suggesting that Jack’s redemption is tied
to that of his young players. In fact, The Way Back teases that very moment, before doggedly pushing ahead. Life isn’t a basketball game, and it doesn’t stop when the buzzer sounds.
The screenplay also provides just enough backstory for several of the players to make them more than just scenery, without overwhelming the main narrative. One kid has issues with his father; another suffers from impostor syndrome; a third seems to be a Romeo off the court, until we realize he’s with a different Juliet in every scene.
Jack manages the kids with the ol’ tough-but-fair coaching style, though you may find yourself wondering if he’s got the balance right. Does Marcus (Melvin Gregg) really deserve to be cut from the team for showing up four minutes late to practice?
It’s a question that will resonate when the coach himself shows up mid-practice one day, mumbling about a power outage that took out his alarm clock. He isn’t fooling anyone.
The film’s fourth quarter feels a little bit rushed, perhaps a touch too tidy. But it’s an artistic choice, and it keeps the story from overstaying its welcome. The Way Back runs a brisk hour and three-quarters, more than enough time to tell its tale. If you’re left hoping for a generous period of overtime for Affleck’s character, that’s merely an indication of how well he plays the acting game.