Listen, guys, I try to review movies through both a subjective and objective lens as much as possible, but I’m not gonna lie…this one is going to be pretty subjective for me. I don’t really know how to recommend The Way Back in an objective way, because it’s a movie that felt really personal for me, and it resonated with me in a way that I don’t expect it to with most people. I think the most objective thing I can say about it is that it does follow a lot of the beats of your typical sports drama movie, so if you’re into these kinds of movies then it should be up your alley. If you’re not, then I don’t think this one is necessarily groundbreaking for the average viewer. So, this is going to be a simple “watch it if you like these kinds of movies, skip it if you don’t.”

Anyway, while The Way Back does follow a lot of story beats of most sports dramas, I feel like the sport itself is really a background presence in the movie. At its core, The Way Back is really about struggling with alcoholism and coping from loss. Its main character is Jack Cunningham, who has recently suffered a great loss (it could be considered a spoiler, so I’ll be vague about it), and as a result his life has spiraled. He and his wife have divorced, he’s disconnected himself from his family, and he’s found his only driving force now at the bottom of a bottle. He’s constantly drinking, and it’s the only way he knows how to function. It’s soon revealed that in high school, Jack was one of the best basketball players around. So, when his high school offers him a job coaching the basketball team, Jack finds a renewed purpose and a shot at redemption in moving forward with his life.

I feel like I should describe why The Way Back was so impactful for me. I’ve been thinking about my dad a lot lately. He was an alcoholic for my entire life, and I’m not using that term lightly. I’m talking that he was the kind of guy that would buy a 30-pack of beer…every single day. Even when he was still working, this is how he functioned. This had a terrible impact on every facet of his life. When it came to me, it meant being faced with the choice by mother to stop drinking or have his family move out…and he didn’t stop drinking. This always led to a really strained relationship between me and my dad. Long before I ever realized how the abandonment had impacted me, I just didn’t really want to be around him much. And to be fair, why would I? He was a mess most of the time. After a number of surgeries and other medical problems, he eventually found himself permanently unemployed, and his only purpose seemed to be to just drink every day. He unfortunately passed away five years ago, and this has been hard for me in the sense that I never felt like I got the closure I needed with him. It’s really unfortunate, too, because since his death I’ve started to understand alcoholism better, and I feel like if he was alive today I’d be able to see him better as a complete person with an addiction, rather than just “my alcoholic father.”

I ended up watching The Way Back at one of the most perfect opportunities. The day before watching it, I reconnected with a friend of mine from college. While hanging out, we spoke at length about my dad, and it’s really set into motion a series of thought spirals that I’ve gone into about him. Then, I watched The Way Back, and I just saw so much of my father in Jack. I’ve always felt like the power of cinema (or even just storytelling in general) is that it allows us to connect with characters, even when we’re not going through the struggles that they are. So, I felt connected to Jack and invested in his struggles, and so in a way it was like getting to connect to my own father in a way I was never able to while he was alive. It allowed me to see my dad as a more complete human being, and understand that it wasn’t always as simple as him being some piece of shit for choosing alcohol over his son. It helped me see that he struggled with his life so much, and that he just felt like he had no way of making it better. It fills me with regret and sadness that I was unable to help him improve his life.

All of this is to say that I don’t expect The Way Back to hit as hard for people as it did for me. I do genuinely think it’s a great movie, but I also recognize that it’s not the pinnacle of cinema. It has some really generic and formulaic moments, and so for some people it might not resonate. The ending is also likely going to turn a lot of people off. It did initially for me too, because it feels way too abrupt, but the more I’ve thought about it, I’m actually okay with it. While the rest of the movie can follow some predictable patterns of these kinds of movies, the end actually goes off in an entirely unpredictable direction. The problem is that it doesn’t feel emotionally satisfying, but the trade-off is that it ends up being way more realistic and meaningful. The Way Back is a movie that isn’t afraid to show just how badly alcoholism can affect someone’s life. I’ve gained a much deeper appreciation for the struggles that alcoholics go through, and this hit me in a way I wasn’t at all expecting. It might not be as impactful for everyone, but for me it really resonated, and made me feel some things I haven’t felt in a while.

4/5