Ben Affleck’s Finding the Way Back is the latest in Us cinema’s rich tradition of basketball films, from Hoop Dreams to He Got GameHaving skidded far off the rails, a former star basketball player finds renewed purpose in life by coaching a team of bright-eyed young talents: some films start with a script, but Finding the Way Back practically starts with a template.
That’s not a criticism of Gavin O’Connor’s satisfying meat-and-potatoes sports drama, which was supposed to come out in UK cinemas in late March, and instead was digitally released last Friday.
Finding the Way Back uses the familiarity of its premise to highlight ways in which sporting triumph and personal pride don’t always line up.As an alcoholic Los Angeles construction worker somehow tasked with coaching his former high school’s ailing basketball team, Ben Affleck introduces a note of wounded anxiety
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