A classic feature drama, light in tone, with a deep, thoughtful message.
What's it like: Light feature drama with sports content, amusing and entertaining but also moving and mystical. Very thought-provoking about the nature of life.
Plot: Ray Kinsella (played by Kevin Costner), a Sixties rebel, now in his early thirties with a young family, has just decided to start a farm in the conservative mid-West state of Iowa. As a late teenager, he had split acrimoniously with his father, who was an avid baseball fan. After a strange mystical experience where he hears a voice and has a vision, he comes to believe that if he turns one of his fields into a baseball pitch, the legendary 1910 Chicago Sox baseball team will come back and play on the field. Kinsella pursues this, and it leads him down a path of helping others achieve their dream- including a mid-West doctor who missed out on his cherished ambition; and a disillusioned novelist living as a recluse - and in the process, resolving some major issues in his own life.
Classic quotes:
'If you build it, he will come'
' "Is this heaven ?" 'No, it's Iowa." '
Comment:
This is a very popular and classic film, with wide appeal.
It has a complex plot which links together a range of disparate characters in ways which help them find fulfilment.
There are really good performances all around. Kevin Costner in the lead as Ray Kinsella; Amy Madigan as Annie Kinsella; James Earl Jones as the novelist; Burt Lancaster as the doctor.
The script is sharp and full of punchy one-liners such as:
'Oh no, you're from the Sixties !'
'The only thing we had in common was that she was from Iowa and that I had once heard of Iowa'.
It portrays political-social tension: between the liberal-Sixties Kinsellas and the surrounding conservative farming community and also Ray's more conventionally minded brother. In a sub-plot, Ray's wife is involved in a dispute about whether the local school curriculum should include Sixties literature.
It explores philosophical-spiritual questions such as our destiny and choices in life; whether we can fulfil our dreams; and how we connect with other people and help them. The film is clearly from the cultural milieu of the late 80s/early 90s, when popular spirituality and psychology were coming to the fore (and to which ex-Sixties folk such as the Kinsellas would probably be open). The film seems to set out messages such as:
You may have to reach out and take major risks to achieve your goals
Life will take you down paths you did not expect
Children sometimes see things more clearly than adults.
Sometimes you need to believe in order to see.
We can be instrumental in helping others achieve their dreams.
Sometimes it is when the risk-taking becomes painful that you experience the breakthrough (similar to 'the growth comes when you leave your comfort zone'.)
Rating: 5/5 29 March 2019
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