[Review] The Way Back(2020) {7.5/10}

When the Bishop Hayes High School basketball team suddenly needs a new coach, former star athlete Jack Cunningham (Ben Affleck) is tapped for the job. Despite his own personal demons, his rough-around-the-edges mannerisms, and the team's dismal record, Cunningham finds the players' hidden talents. And he also starts to find THE WAY BACK to healing himself.

In the best performance of his career, Ben Affleck tells a story of a son and father dealing with great personal trauma and loss, suffering through his inability to deal with it, choosing alcohol to dull and suppress the pain. It’s a well told story of the darkest moments and the struggle to find healing among family, friends realizing it requires a calling from within to live up to being our best selves which he achieves. His emotional portrayal is honest, intense and appears to come from deep inside. Writing, direction, cinematography, editing, settings and musical score are wonderfully synchronized, simple, direct and very personal taking the viewer close-in and a part of the story. It has documentary like realness. The rest of the cast are “perfectly selected” and also as real as imaginable.

Ben Affleck's performance is outstanding. Everyone else in The Way Back are truly just supporting his ability to tell this story about the tragedy of alcoholism. His character, Jack Cunningham, is the kind of person who's often called a "guy's guy" and the movie's story will most likely appeal to older men who may better relate to the way Cunningham deals with the painful knocks life has handed him. Those tough moments are likely to squeeze parents' hearts so hard they can't breathe, which might also make them wonder how they'd handle such difficult moments in their own lives. Gavin O'Connor's direction is on point.

The Way Back may also be pointing to an effective way forward for faith-based films. It's hard to tell whether this one is or isn't intended to fall into that category. Like the agnostic who attends a Catholic school for the education rather than the dogma, the movie's faith-based elements are entirely character driven, and the setting is more of a means to an end. Unlike many of the movies coming out of the evangelical community, The Way Back  doesn't preach, sermonize, or recruit: It just is. Cunningham is a blue-collar worker living in a community of blue-collar workers. He's not striving for perfection or even survival; he's striving to numb the pain. Some of his coaching techniques are the opposite of what the school is teaching. The chaplain prays with the athletes that they play with respect and dignity above all, while Cunningham's mission is to win, even if that means unsportsmanlike conduct. And he swears more like a Hollywood-stereotypical Miami drug dealer than a Long Beach Catholic high school coach. That's who Cunningham is, but for parents, it may be cringey to see the high school kids pick up on his favorite word: "f--k." Cunningham isn't intended to be a role model, and yet he is to these boys. The Way Back is a film that motivates you to move forward in life and is worth watching.

The Way Back is now available on Digital and Blu Ray.