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A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Saturday 7 March 2020

Review: A moving turn from Ben Affleck

in an ordinary drama

BY LINDSEY BAHR op Hayes, wants him to Of course an audience
There is nothing particu- come back to the place is going to want to see
larly extraordinary about he once ruled as an all- Jack recover. Of course
director Gavin O’Connor’s star player to coach their they’re going to be heart-
“ The Way Back,” except currently less-than-glorious ened when he starts caring
perhaps for Ben Affleck’s basketball team. about the basketball team.
performance. This is a quiet It’s exactly what you’d ex- Of course they’re going to
drama about a lonely al- pect, but the scenes with cheer when he wins and
coholic who gets a lifeline the team are some of the sigh at his inevitable slip-
when he’s asked to coach best in the film — funny and ups.
This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Al Madrigal, a high school basketball spirited and wholly engag- Or perhaps that’s too cyni-
left, and Ben Affleck in a scene from "The Way Back." team. It’s the kind of movie ing — even if they do seem cal. “The Way Back” does
Associated Press people like to say “Holly- ripped from the playbook. seem to have been con-
wood doesn’t make any- But “The Way Back” doesn’t structed with an earnest
more,” which is only partly fancy itself a typical sports spirit, and Affleck carries
true. It’s also the kind of drama. It’s attempting to the film well on his larger-
movie you might feel like be more than that with a than-usual shoulders, ca-
you’ve seen before (also lot of threads and side plots pably showing all sides of a
partly true). that never quite develop to down-on-his-luck alcoholic
Affleck plays Jack Cunning- any satisfying end. — the funny, the sweet, the
ham, a lumbering, middle- The basketball isn’t the explosive and the self-de-
aged man who drinks all focus. Jack is. And this structive. It’s chilling to see
day, every day. He cracks is a guy who’s got a lot the light go on in his eyes
open a can in the shower. of ghosts that the movie with a drink, and the mo-
He pours a little something takes its time to reveal. The ment when it goes out too.
into his coffee tumbler at his script from Brad Ingelsby “The Way Back” is a promis-
construction job. He drinks and O’Connor withholds ing move forward for a star
on the drive to the bar. He a fair amount, perhaps to who has always respect-
drinks in the bar. The next make “The Way Back” a ably skipped between
day he repeats the cycle more accurate reflection genres. Still, it’s not as com-
all over again. of how often people’s past pelling as Affleck’s recent
He’s what you might call troubles come up in every- interviews about his own
a functioning alcoholic, day life. But in retrospect, struggles, interviews char-
although this state of drift- there’s a nagging sense acterized by honesty and
ing through life in a booze- that it was just done for a specificity.q
addled daze doesn’t make cheap punch in the gut. Affleck has it in him to use
him happy. He’s merely sur- If there is an overriding his personal experiences
viving in his sad, dirty apart- problem with “The Way to make a great drama,
ment until he gets a phone Back,” it’s that: The whole whether writing, directing
call from his past: The head thing feels a little like a or acting, but “The Way
of his old high school, Bish- cheap punch in the gut. Back” isn’t it.q

Dave Matthews was inspired by his

daughters to write a novel

NEW YORK (AP) — For his
debut novel, Dave Mat-
thews found inspiration
close to home.
He was recording music
in New Orleans years ago
when he started imaging
the story of "If We Were Gi-
ants." His twin daughters
were 6.
While they played in the
trees, the singer-songwriter
was overwhelmed by na-
ture and how people inter-
act with it. So that prompt-
ed him to craft a story to
share with them.
Though the story centers
This combination photo shows the cover image for the children's on a strong young woman,
book, "If We Were Giants" by Dave Matthews and Clete Barrett Matthews never set out to
Smith with illustrations by Antonio Javier Caparo, left, and a por- write a book about female
trait of musician and author Dave Matthews. empowerment. He says it
Associated Press
just sort of happened.q