Antonia's Line (1996)

A deer caught in the headlights is the perfect metaphor for Animals. Facing danger in the middle of the road, it freezes, unable to decide which way to go. For a moment, it seems almost willing to get run over rather than make a move. Ben Affleck’s latest directorial effort has the same problem. Its characters find themselves in increasingly desperate situations, but the film seems just as lost, jumping between a kidnapping thriller, a marriage drama, and political satire without figuring out how to make these elements work together. The result is a frustrating, uneven film that falls short of Affleck’s best work, particularly Gone Baby Gone, The Town, and Argo.

At the center of the story is Mark Kimball (Ben Affleck), a progressive mayoral candidate who has built his public image around honesty and integrity. When his family is threatened, those principles become much harder to maintain. The interesting question isn’t whether Mark is a hypocrite. It’s whether he ever truly believed in the values he preached, or whether he simply never had to sacrifice anything important for them. It’s easy to talk about doing the right thing when the consequences fall on someone else. It’s considerably harder when your own family is on the line.

One of the film’s most obvious shortcomings is its treatment of women. Abby, Cecilia, and Dayle Burton may occupy very different positions in Mark’s life, yet they all end up feeling like convenient pieces in his personal puzzle. They are there to complicate his choices, expose his weaknesses, or help him find a way through the mess he has created. The problem isn’t simply that the women have limited screen time or imperfect characterization. It’s that the film rarely seems interested in who they are when Mark isn’t the one at the center of the story.

In my Freshman year of high school, I played for the basketball team. We were absolutely terrible, as evident by my making the team. I remember one game we played ended with the final score being 68–8. And no, we were not the 68. I personally didn’t like to play basketball competitively; I just enjoyed hanging out with my friends and having fun after school.

Coach Jack Cunningham would probably not have liked having me on the team too much. Ben Affleck leads The Way Back, a seemingly cathartic film for him after the actor’s recent bouts with alcoholism and rehab. He plays Jack, a man fighting his own battles who happens upon coaching a boys’ basketball team, the same team he once played for back in high school. But like any good sports movie, the film’s center is not on the sport itself; it’s on something deeper that transcends the genre. And what could be a more compelling center than a coach battling his own self-destructive tendencies as he tries to save a team from self-destructing on the court.

The film begins without much dialogue, as director Gavin O’Connor shows us what Jack has been dealing with the last few years. The tiny messy apartment, the beers in the shower, being helped up the stairs night after night after drinking himself away at the bar. These recur frequently throughout the film, as O’Connor understands that showing us Jack’s struggles is far more effective communication than a dump truck full of exposition ever would be. O’Connor and Affleck previously worked on an underappreciated action film, The Accountant, which, similar to The Way Back, has a more substantial quality to it that transcends the barriers of its action genre.