When I first heard about Trouble With The Curve I thought it was yet another baseball movie targeted toward baseball fans. However, I was pleasantly surprised to experience a heart-warming story about a relationship between a father and his daughter. Filled with strong characters, deep emotions and little bouts of humor, Trouble With The Curveis so much more than a baseball movie.The very accomplished and talented Clint Eastwood plays the character Gus, an old baseball scout whose failing eyesight is affecting his work. With the recruiting season in full swing, Gus is under pressure to find the next “big hit.” Even with his many years of experience and knowledge of the game, how can Gus pick out the next all-star if he can’t even see the ball fly over the base?
This is where his daughter comes in. Mickey, played by Amy Adams, is highly successful at her law firm, yet struggles to deal with her father. When word of his health and pressure from his employers reaches Mickey, she tries one last time to connect with her father by dropping everything to accompany him on his scouting trip.
This trip is not all fun and games, though. Mickey’s father makes it a point to keep his daughter at a distance, constantly telling her to go back home to focus on her up-and-coming career.
Eastwood and Adams work perfectly together to create a moving performance. The father-daughter relationship they portray is brilliant. As expected, Eastwood brings powerful emotions into his work, and you can’t help but acknowledge the tension he feels with his daughter. The same can be said about Adams, who shows the devotion of a committed daughter. Their family struggles evoke so much pain.
Mickey tries so hard to reconnect with her father, but it seems to be a lost cause, because all her father wants is for her to go back home to her own life. She just wants a meaningful conversation and to bring back the relationship they had when she was a little girl when she used to accompany him on his baseball scouting trips.
To throw in more drama, Mickey meets the oh-so-charming Johnny, played by Justin Timberlake. Johnny was a star baseball player and was recruited straight out of school by Gus. However, after being overplayed in the major leagues, Johnny suffered an injury that took him off the field forever.
To stay near the game he loves, Johnny turned to scouting with Gus. Upon his first meeting with Mickey, there was an apparent connection. Timberlake and Adams are the perfect duo, and I love the attraction these two actors can display on screen. In one scene in particular, the two take a steamy midnight swim. Both characters have their own skeletons in the closet, but they connect on a level that will satisfy the hopeless romantics.
With other well-known actors like Robert Patrick and John Goodman, this movie creates a dynamic web of relationships, which unknowingly all coincide in the end.
Trouble With The Curve is filled with deep relationships and the emotional struggles of all involved. Here you have a movie that can please your baseball fans out there, as well as those moviegoers who just want to see something heart-warming and meaningful. This movie will allow you to appreciate the relationships we all have and show you just how important they really are. Trouble With The Curve really did meet my expectations and it is always a pleasure to see Eastwood give another phenomenal performance. Needless to say, I left the theater with a light heart and a small smile on my face.
Critic’s Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Alyssa Hingre can be reach at alyssa.hingre@spartans.ut.edu.