The director of the new sports drama The Way Back says he views basketball as a metaphor for life – or as he calls it, “life in shorts.”
Each has trials. Each has triumphs. And each has moments when you want to give up.
“Destiny, faith, emotion, adversity – there are all things that happen in basketball and also happen in life,” director Gavin O’Connor told Christian Headlines.
The Way Back (R) tells the story of Jack Cunningham (Ben Affleck), a man who is battling alcoholism when he is given a second chance in life by coaching his alma mater, the local Catholic high school where he formerly was a star player.
Cunningham’s alcoholism was sparked by the death of his young son – a tragedy that led him into a spiral of anger and depression.
The story has a lesson about life for moviegoers, O’Connor said.
“When you’re faced with tragedy, or even just adversity, how do you deal with it? And that’s what defines you,” O’Connor told Christian Headlines. “In a way, it’s a movie about second chances. I’m a believer in third chances, fourth chances. As long as you’re trying I’m just not a believer in shutting the door on people. It’s very much about that. It’s about a guy who was finally willing to face his demons. Adversity had kicked his butt – and trying to overcome them on the road to recovery. This is analogous to a lot of people’s lives. It doesn’t have to be alcoholism.”
O’Connor said the story impacted him as a father, too.
“I would have anxiety attacks at night, because I so love my little girl, and I think, ‘What if something happened to her? How would I survive that? That was something that was in my bloodstream when I got the script,” he said. “So I wanted to confront that myself.”
The film isn’t based on a true story, although O’Connor and Affleck each watched the 30 for 30 film Unguarded, which tells the story of basketball legend Chris Herren, whose basketball career was cut short due to a drug addiction. O’Connor visited with Herren while he was molding Cunningham’s character.
The director previously worked with Affleck on The Accountant (2016), which Affleck starred in and O’Connor directed. Affleck and O’Connor independently read the script for The Way Back and wanted to make it.
“[Ben] called me and said, ‘I want to do this movie, I want to play this guy, would you be open to reading the scripts and directing this?’”
By then, though, O’Connor already had read the script.
“It was one of those very rare occurrences where two people independent of each other read the same piece of material and respond to it,” O’Connor said. “So having worked with Ben before, we wanted to go on the journey together.”
The Way Back is rated R for language throughout including some sexual references. Language includes the f-word (45), GD (6) and multiple instances of s–t, d–n, h-ll and a–. The film contains no nudity.
Photo courtesy: ©Warner Bros.
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, The Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
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