Spoilers Herein
Aside from myself, the March 12th, 9 pm AMC Plymouth Meeting showing of The Way Back was empty.
I don’t know exactly what to say about that, only that it felt like the only way to open up this piece.
There’s a lot that can be said about The Way Back, but it is, first and foremost, a harmonization of a sports story and a sobriety story. This harmonization works with the expectations and tropes of an inspirational sports movie. That said, it’s not simply a case of “protagonist struggles with ______ , starts coaching, helps his ragtag team of misfits get to the big game while overcoming ______, then realizes all this time he thought he was coaching the kids, when really, they were coaching him”, with alcoholism filling in the blanks.
Rather, the film instead uses the realities of alcoholism to reflect on the realities of life. Our struggles as human beings are never forever solved, and we are not, as Rian Johnson put it, a “video game character who has achieved a binary, permanent power-up.” A struggle with sobriety is never a permanent fix, and it’s never as simple as winning the big game. There are days when it will be easier than others, but hard or easy, they are all days, and they have to be taken, as they say, one at a time.
Days Of Future Past
We see Jack Cunningham (Ben Affleck) in three different places in his life regarding alcoholism. The first, of course, is plain old off-the-wagon drinking. Throughout the film we see him enjoying a shower beer, going to work, getting obscenely drunk at his regular pub, and then carried up to his apartment by a concerned old friend of his father. Wash, rinse, repeat.
These drinking scenes brought back memories. They were familiar. But they never felt like something I was at risk of. I never felt like I could go back to this, because I don’t want to go back to this. I feel a confidence with my current state of sobriety, as though I could never want anything else.
Jack’s first game is highlighted by a notable long shot of him walking onto the court. This is both familiar and new; it’s his first time in the court as coach but he’s back. Jack’s anger doesn’t help them win the game, nor has he achieved sobriety by the start of it (in the consistent sense, of course; he’s not drunk at the game). He’s even called out by his assistant coach for leaving behind some empty beer cans in his office. He dismisses the criticism, claiming he had a friend stop by.
One night he heads to his usual bar. So far in the film, when we see him at the bar, he’s already there and already drinking. We don’t see the first, only the 50th.
This time, though, we see the outside, what would be the beginning of the night, as he sits in the car. His bartender buddy is seen taking out the trash; he notices Jack, and tells him he’s going to set him up.
For a few more moments, he just sits. And then his car leaves the parking lot.
He’s not drinking tonight.
Despite being sober (knock on wood, 341 days when I post this), despite enjoying sobriety, and despite my “I remember these days but don’t miss them” feelings during the earlier drinking scenes in the movie….I let out an exacerbated sigh here. This scene was unexpectedly stressful, as it unearthed a stress I had completely forgotten about.
I don’t want to start drinking again. But I don’t want to have to stop drinking again.
I’ve been splinter free for 341 days, and I’m continuing my precautions to avoid getting splinters. But God forbid I do get one, I don’t know if I’ll be able to take it out. Maintaining sobriety is much, much easier than achieving it, and the thought of being in that semi-hungover state and then having to say “no” again is a nightmare.
But this nightmare quickly subsided. After he drives away, we get a shot of Jack standing on his apartment patio. Anytime we’ve seen him at night at his apartment, he’s either plastered or in the process of it.
Here, he’s enjoying the view. Enjoying the possibilities.
A new day awaits.
The Big Game
Jack is sober now, and they start winning games, but he’s not free of his other faults. Sobriety gives us the ability to focus on our problems, but it doesn’t solve them, and Jack’s anger brings him to such a low that he gets removed from a game. And not just any game; it was their first of two chances to go to the playoffs, and it was the first game his family attended.
Jack finally starts to confront his anger. And he does so before a game. The big game. The game that’s their last chance to enter the playoffs. He enters the court accompanied by a similar long shot to his first game. Like the one that preceded it, it highlights a new experience in a familiar place. But it’s not simply him returning to the court, or him coaching for the first time, but coaching with a new headspace.
They, of course, win the game, and winning the big game goes the way you’d expect the winning of the big game to go cinematically. The star player who made the winning shot is hoisted up, everyone’s happy, and it ends with a freeze frame on a medium shot of Jack, which then fades out.
It’s a brilliant fake-out ending.
Life Beyond The Game
Before the fake out ending, we get two pieces of information relating to any children Jack may have had. The first is when Jack is being interviewed for the coaching job, and Jack tells the priest (John Aylward) that he and ex-wife Angela (Janina Gavankar) didn’t have children.
The second is when Jack is at a birthday party for a boy named David. Jack is introduced to David as the father of Michael, David’s old hospital friend (if I recall, it’s said that Michael and David raced in their wheelchairs, or something to that degree).
David had cancer. And unfortunately, not long after the game, Jack learns that his son’s friend’s cancer is back.
For a little while, doing right by his team was Jack’s priority. Getting sober and working on his anger helped that goal.
But in seeing David’s parents learn the news, in seeing their trauma, Jack gets a trigger. A trigger that is not simply being asked about kids, or being reminded about his son having existed. Seeing the pain he once endured is far too specific to not elicit a response, and he wants to escape.
And through this response, we learn that suppressing Michael’s death is the ultimate priority. More than the game, more than his anger, and more than his sobriety.
And so we get a third long shot. This shot, like the two in the basketball courts, is a return to a familiar place. But this time, the familiar place is the bar. Jack sits at the bar. He puts the glass near his mouth, briefly hesitates, and then takes the sip. Immediately after, the film cuts to a familiar shot of Jack being carried up to his apartment by an old friend of his Dad’s. Before he sobered up, we didn’t see Jack’s first drink, only his 50th. Here we see the first sip, followed by the results of the 50th.
I said before that I didn’t miss the drinking days that Jack was going through, but watching Jack stop drinking was stressful. That I’ve remained splinter free, but don’t know what I’d do if I had to get a splinter out again.
Watching this showed me what it would be like if I got the splinter again. That it would be painful and, worst of all, could happen at any time.
And it’s all after the winning shot. All after the hoisting of the star player. All after the freeze frame and fade.
None of this means that the sport is irrelevant. The fake-out ending, the contrast of those tropes, doesn’t mean the film is criticizing these things, it’s not a satire. But utilizing these tropes to establish joy and success just makes Jack’s relapse and its consequences all the more heartbreaking.
The Consequences
The morning after his relapse is established by a shot of an empty patio that established his first night sober. No longer a night of potential, it is now a wasted morning.
He’s late for practice and blames the lateness on a power outage. But worse than merely late and lying, he’s still drunk. And even worse than still drunk, he’s drinking later in his office. He hides the liquor when his assistant coach Dan (Al Madrial) and the Priest enter his office, but they tell him he’s fired.
No warning. The school has a no tolerance policy when it comes to alcohol, and so this relapse isn’t some bump in the road for his career as coach, some personal issue that will run adjacent to new problems for his time coaching the team. He’s done with the team.
There remains dramatic harmony between the sport and the real life drama, and once more, the film is not satire, but it’s not a tragedy either. The harmony is not found in “he relapsed, therefore his coaching life is over, therefore his life is over.” It doesn’t end on this dire note. The two men that fired him even want to get him help.
But the night does get darker before the dawn. He angrily rejects their help, doesn’t stop drinking, drinks while driving, crashes the car, accidentally walks into the wrong house, less accidentally gets into a fight with the homeowner, and ends up in the hospital.
This is rock bottom. There’s no way around it anymore. Jack needs to go to rehab, and to rehab he goes.
Here, he has to confront it all. Angela, Michael’s death, everything. But he’s in the right place to do this, with the right support (he gets visits from his family in addition to Angela), and getting to the right mindset. And so the film ends with Jack in rehab, shooting some hoops on his own, as the team goes on to the playoffs. They haven’t won the playoffs, but they’re there. Just like Jack hasn’t completely forever achieved sobriety, but he can properly try now.
True Dramatic Harmony
And so we have the optimistic note the film ends on, and the proper dramatic harmony between basketball and Jack’s life. Getting into the playoffs isn’t the same as winning the championship game, and getting into rehab isn’t a guarantee for eternal sobriety, but they both represent potential.
Yes, Jack’s relapse led to consequences that can’t be changed, and there is a very real threat of failure for both the team and Jack. But with that threat of failure comes hope. It’s through this threat of failure that our successes become possible, that they become meaningful. If sobriety was easy then people wouldn’t need to fight for it daily, and if its failure wasn’t significant then we would have nothing to fight for.
And, above all, even if we fail, we just have to start fighting again.
Because there’s always a way back.
devilsadvocritic 