'The Miracle Season' sports drama wins with messages of hope and faith
<h3 class="briefHead">"The Miracle Season" - ★ ★ ½</h3>
Evangelical Christian filmmakers could take a lesson or two from Sean McNamara's fact-based sports drama "The Miracle Season."
Many "faith-based" movies tend to make faith their subject, one brought up for examination, discussion and affirmation by their characters.
The characters in "The Miracle Season" simply react to tragedy and sorrow as people of faith would in real life.
Here, a mother afflicted with pancreatic cancer takes comfort in knowing that she will be reunited with her dead teenage daughter in heaven.
A Christian father and husband, about to lose his wife as he has already lost a daughter, rebuffs a pastor's outreach, bitterly saying that God hasn't done much for him lately.
Then, the students and faculty of Iowa City's West High School unite to celebrate the life and bubbly, positive personality of the school's volleyball team captain. They do it by fostering a community and message of good will and positivity, "Live Like Line."
"The Miracle Season" tells the story of Caroline "Line" Found, captain of the team that won the 2010 Iowa State Volleyball Championship. Things look good for the students and Kathy "Coach Brez" Bresnahan (Helen Hunt) to win the championship again.
One night, a Moped accident kills "Line" (a spunky Danika Yarosh).
McNamara understands the emotional devastation created by the death of classmates, and renders this debilitating sense of loss to the screen with reverent accuracy.
Caroline's best friend, Kelley Fliehler (Erin Moriarty), reluctantly takes the captain's slot, but things don't look good. William Hurt brings underplayed grief to Ernie Found, Caroline's father.
Regrettably, "The Miracle Season" packages an excellent message inside a mediocre, formulaic sports drama loaded with cliches. Overused and ineptly applied slow-motion shots subvert the court action.
But then, the miracle in "Miracle Season" has little to do with sports.
<b>Starring:</b> Helen Hunt, William Hurt, Erin Moriarty, Danika Yarosh
<b>Directed by:</b> Sean McNamara
<b>Other:</b> An LD Entertainment release. Rated PG. 90 minutes