Trouble with the Curve: Explores the Human Side

Baseball scouting, as indicated in Moneyball, has become increasingly reliant on computerized calculations and statistics to determine these players’ potentials. This ends up marginalizing traveling baseball scouts and agents with seasoned senses and instincts.

Gus Lobel (Clint Eastwood), an aging baseball scout, has dedicated his entire life to recruiting the best baseball players. Some of his adversarial colleagues are pushing for his retirement due to his old-fashioned methods and lack of recent recruits. His contract with the Atlanta Braves will end in three months, and Gus feels like he has to prove himself to be worthy of his job. The glaucoma in his eyes reminds him of his physical decline and his growing obsolescence in the industry. His friend and boss, Pete (John Goodman), persuades Gus’ estranged daughter, Mickey (Amy Adams), to check up on her father. On the verge of becoming a partner at her law firm, Mickey decides to follow Gus to the high school tournament in North Carolina, where some of the biggest major league teams are looking to scout young blood. She chooses to push aside the pressing demands of her workplace to take care of her only surviving family.

This film truly shines when it focuses on the relationship between father and daughter. Baseball becomes the primary medium through which they can openly communicate and exchange ideas. As the game is always changing, the best we can do is rely on our instincts and gut to critically read the situation and act accordingly. The narrative suggests that we shouldn’t subjugate the importance of familial and social relationships to the fluctuating demands and setbacks of any industry, whether it be baseball or the law. We attribute these games with so much meaning and emotion, but when it comes to our own lives, we often hesitate to exercise full responsibility and control.

I could tell that the character of Gus Lobel was very much written for Eastwood. Gus loves nothing more than a continental breakfast with lots of protein and smoking a cigar with a beer in one hand. Although he’s a man of very little words, he genuinely cares about his players, even arranging a trip for a struggling player’s parents to visit him. Even years after his wife’s death, he continues to mourn for her. Eastwood returns to play the hero that many of us will empathize with and remember from his previous performances. Gus often masks his true feelings and emotions in his work, and his daughter finds herself doing the same–until she decides to break this cycle.

Largely known for her works in bubbly films like Enchanted  and Julie & Julia, Adams channels a focused, intelligent, and emotionally scarred young woman who has never forgiven her father for his emotional distance. She has pushed herself through law school and secured a life of stability to appease her father. Although she initially comes off as vulnerable and damaged, her character develops a genuine strain of integrity, forthrightness, and gumption to challenge her father’s, her supervisor’s, and even her eventual love interest’s evasive tendencies.

The film also contests the fixed mindset many of us harbor in regards to our careers and emotional availability. Gus often advises people to “walk away” from undesirable situations, but the film clearly prefers another alternative. This defeatist, nostalgic attitude doesn’t exclusively exist in older people like Gus but becomes ever present in both Johnny Flanagan (Justin Timberlake), a young washed-up baseball player, and Mickey, both of whom at first opt to hang around Gus’ old-timey bar instead of having a good time of their own. Both of them must overcome their fears and anxieties of failure and create their own vision of a fulfilling life.

The only off-putting aspect of this film was its strained rags to riches subplot. The Hispanic motel owner’s son, who sells peanuts at baseball games to make ends meet, is shown as having an usually good throwing arm from the very beginning. Naturally, Mickey finds out about his potential and actively pitches him for the Braves. This contrived plot twist made it seem like the film became super conscious of its narrow focus on the Lobels and wanted to solve bigger problems, such as the lack of social mobility for working-class immigrants. It almost threw the film off balance.

Despite some contrived elements, Trouble with the Curve encourages viewers to face their fears and take care of unfinished business, whether it pertains to familial and interpersonal relationships and career ambitions. One probably wouldn’t consider these people to be underdogs–in fact, they seem comparatively privileged and lead comfortable lives. But this film, like many other sports-drama narratives, challenge people to shoot for their full potential instead of settling for a safe and content life. All in all, Trouble with the Curve would be a great sports-drama film to enjoy with parents and grandparents during the holidays.