The Way Back

by Philip Price

Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures

Director: Gavin O'Connor
Starring: Ben Affleck, Al Madrigal & Janina Gavankar 
Rated: R
Runtime: 1 hour & 48 minutes 

What’s striking about “The Way Back” is the expectations versus reality aspect of the film. When set-up for a sports drama where it’s almost a certainty that the sports will serve as a backdrop for the redemptive character piece there are a few things one expects from the screenplay; chief among them being the redemption of our hero. This isn’t to give anything away about “The Way Back” necessarily, but it is to caution the casual viewer that if you’re going into the latest Ben Affleck-led drama with certain, archetypal expectations you maybe shouldn’t expect all the warm feelings typically associated with said genre. This isn’t even to say that what those dramas deliver isn’t good or entertaining as I can appreciate more standard fare like “The Accountant” well enough, but I do so with more enthusiasm when I know Affleck is going to balance it with something like “Gone Girl.” This isn’t an evaluation of Affleck’s career choices though, and while the parallels between Affleck’s character in “The Way Back” and his real life are impossible to ignore it would seem these potential similarities in a state of mind if not necessarily lifestyle served not only to inform his acting choices, but function as something of a catharsis. 
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In director Gavin O’Connor’s (“Warrior”) film Affleck plays Jack Cunningham, a man who is openly suffering if not in the most “woe is me” fashion, but certainly in the most trainwreck-like of ways that would give way to anyone recognizing the signs of depression, grief and an overwhelming amount of regret. And yes, Affleck is great in it. Sure, “The Way Back” gets points for being a compelling story about a guy who has essentially lost it all and finds some purpose in a ragtag bunch of basketball players at his alma mater while including an adequate number of sports sequences and additional character arcs in some of the key players both Jack and the audience become invested in, but this is Jack’s story. It is in Brad Ingelsby’s (“Out of the Furnace”) screenplay and O’Connor’s direction that we gauge Jack’s journey is not one of complete redemption nor is it one where he reaches a point where he gets to wipe the slate clean and start anew; he doesn’t really want to “start anew”. 

“The Way Back” doesn’t tie as nice a bow on this story as most might hope it would, but instead presents the unwelcome truth that we can’t recover from some things in life. We’re reminded again and again that we need to cherish the time we have rather than focus on how long something will or won’t last, but the presence of something life-changing, no matter how grateful we are for the time given, is something that-when lost-is the type of change that can’t simply be healed by time and variation. Some pain never goes away, some pain one simply has to learn to live with and so, “The Way Back” is Jack discovering how he’s going to live with this indelible pain and how he’s both going to and not going to cope with it. This allows for “The Way Back” to be a story of adaptation more than it is transition and one that is an equally insightful and impactful dissection of this moment in time exactly because it restrains itself from tying a nice bow on Affleck’s difficult, but admirable performance.