It’s no secret that life hasn’t been a bed of roses of late for former Hollywood heartthrob Ben Affleck. With a well documented divorce from Jennifer Garner and subsequent problems with alcohol addiction, Affleck’s career seemed a long way away from its Good Will Hunting (1997) and Argo (2012) succeses. To add to his long list of problems, even his short stint as the superhero Batman was met with a complete lack of interest from DC fans who never quite warmed to him in the role.
Channelling his own issues, Affleck is finally back on our screens starring in Gavin O’Connor’s Finding The Way Back. It in, O’Connor (The Accountant) and screenwriter Brad Ingelsby tell a story of redemption through the power of faith in a film which, sadly for all involved, lacks originality and structure.
Back in high school, Jack Cunningham (Affleck) was a star basketball player with the world at his feet. Today however Jack is a divorced blue-collar worker whose drinking habit has been spiralling out of control after a recent tragedy. Things start to look up for Jack when he is called upon by Father Edward Devine (John Aylward) the dean of his alma mater to take over as coach for the school’s down on its luck basketball team.
Despite his initial reluctance to accept the job, Jack soon finds an outlet to harness his anger at the world and everyone in it. Meanwhile, Jack’s ex wife Angela (Janina Gavankar) informs him that she has a new man in her life, forcing him to look inwardly at his own life and continued destructive trajectory.
Despite a promising first act, Finding The Way Back, loses its way somewhere around the half way stage. O’Connor and Ingelsby seem far too reliant on generic narrative tropes for the film to be anything but yet another predictable sports movie by the numbers. At times, there seems to be two different films vying for our attention, one with a brilliantly thought-out redemptive narrative arc, and another about an underdog sports team overcoming adversity to get to the top. It is the first film that we want to see and not the latter.
Whether deliberate or not, there are hints of Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester By The Sea, a film which starred Affleck’s brother Casey as a grieving father struggling to find a reason to stay alive. Despite a fairly pedestrian screenplay, Ben Affleck here still manages to come across as disarmingly vulnerable. It is this vulnerability which has been hugely lacking in the actor’s more recent performances.
Finding The Way Back promised so much, but sadly failed to deliver the goods. As for Affleck, it looks like we might have to wait a little longer for a well deserved redemptive arc of his own which could hopefully see him back at the top.
