Moneyball

Moneyball - Dir. Bennett Miller (2011)

"…there are rich teams and there are poor teams. Then, there's fifty feet of crap and then, there's us."

I used to be a big baseball fan back in the late-80's and early-90's. The Oakland A's were one of the most dominant forces in Major League Baseball back then. They won the 1989 World Series as well as three American League pennants in a row. At their disposal were ace reliever Dennis Eckersley, Rickey Henderson (one of the greatest lead-off hitters in baseball), and the Bash Brothers, Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire. My interest waned and I stopped following the sport aside from jumping on the bandwagon of the Padres when they made a World Series run in 1998. They were crushed 4-0 by the monolithic New York Yankees. The A's can sympathize as they were crushed by the Yanks in the 2001 AL championships. That's where Moneyball begins.

Based on the book by Michael Lewis, Moneyball is the account of how the A's general manager Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt) reconstructing the franchise on a shoestring budget with a radical approach utilizing the statistical analysis of sabermetrics, developed by Bill James, a statistician who wrote on the subject while working as a night guard for a pork and beans factory.

At the time, Oakland had a payroll of just under $40 million compared to New York's payroll of over $114 million. The A's lose three of their biggest players in the post-season to free agency as Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, and Jason Isringhausen leave for more lucrative contracts. Beane can't afford suitable replacements and his scouts are too fixated on superficial qualities like clean batting strokes and physiques. One opines that a prospect has an ugly girlfriend, which means he lacks confidence. He knows they don't always get it right. Beane himself was drafted straight out of high school to the Mets, despite receiving a full scholarship to Stanford. He never lived up to the high expectations imposed on him.

Desperate, Beane enlists the aid of Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a Yale graduate with a degree in economics, who champions the use of stats, specifically on-base percentage, to determine potential players. Described as an "island of misfit toys," Beane and Brand recruit Chad Bradford (Casey Bond), a relief pitcher overlooked due to his unorthodox submarine delivery; David Justice (Stephen Bishop), an aging power hitter; and Scott Hatteberg (Chris Pratt), an injury plagued catcher shifted to first base. Traditionalists rage against Beane's reliance on numbers, believing it overlooks the complexities and intangibles inherent in the game.

Moneyball's production had as much of a rough start as the A's did during their 2002 season. Steven Soderbergh was previously attached to direct a screenplay written by Stan Chervin and Steve Zaillian. The director of Traffic and Contagion intended to use animated sequences to explain the statistics as well as interspersing interviews with real ball players. Soderbergh even cast Scott Hatteberg and David Justice to play themselves before being removed just days before filming was to begin. Sony went back to the drawing board, bringing on Bennett Miller (Capote) as director and commissioning a new script from Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. While I would have loved to seen Soderbergh's take, what Miller and company have crafted is the kind of the feel good drama Hollywood is known for.

Moneyball transcends the trappings of a mere sports drama or underdog story. It has a lot in common with The Social Network beyond the involvement of Sorkin or producer Scott Rudin. Both are stories about the cultural change in the current informational age. The power no longer lies in the hands of the physically strong, but the meek and nerdy, exemplified by Jonah Hill's socially awkward Peter Brand, a fictional character based on Beane's assistant Paul DePodesta. He's the perfect foil to the suave and confident Billy Beane as portrayed by Brad Pitt. If Clooney is the modern day Cary Grant, then Pitt is the 21st century Robert Redford, even if he is constantly snacking in every scene.

The film's weaknesses do come through with subplots that feel unfinished, perhaps a remnant of its troubled pre-production. There's a lone scene featuring Robin Wright as Beane's ex-wife and an uncredited Spike Jonze as her new husband that doesn't really go anywhere. Although, there are tender moments between Pitt and his on-screen daughter, Kerris Dorsey, his personal life isn't as interesting as his professional one. Philip Seymour Hoffman gives an understated performance as the A's manager Art Howe, who disagrees with Beane's direction. Howe is the primary dissenter and works against Beane's plans, but fades into the background during the second half of the picture. When the A's start winning, we never hear his opinions or whether he finally came around to Beane's philosophies (he didn't).

I'm not a big baseball fan and none of the names in Moneyball meant anything to me. Yet, I found the movie to be absolutely engrossing. Moneyball is a film that makes the backstage politics and the business of baseball as dramatic as the actual game itself.

Rating: *** (*****)

Rabbit Hole

Rabbit Hole - Dir. John Cameron Mitchell (2010)

”God had to take her. He needed another angel.”
“Why didn’t he just make one…another angel. I mean, he’s God after all.”

Rabbit Hole deals with the unimaginable pain that comes from the death of one’s child. The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize winning play by David Lindsay-Abaire and its original Broadway production starred John Slattery and Cynthia Nixon. Nicole Kidman (who also served as producer) and Aaron Eckhart take over the roles of Becca and Howie, a married couple still reeling from the loss of their 4-year old son, Danny. The boy ran into the street to chase the family dog when he was struck by a car.

Howie and Becca slip into empty routine to put on a mask of normalcy, but each one is on a completely different wavelength when it comes to handling their sorrow. Becca donates all of her child’s clothes to charity and wishes to sell the house. Any little reminder is too much to bear. Howie clings to those same reminders and obsesses over one in particular, a short video recorded on his cell phone. He dutifully attends group therapy sessions, but finds no solace while Becca in these touchy-feely pity parties. Unable to communicate with his wife, Howie grows closer to Gaby (Sandra Oh), a member of the group whose own marriage seems to mirror the problems of the protagonists. Meanwhile, Becca enters into an oddly comforting confrontation with Jason (Miles Teller), the teenage driver who accidentally killed Danny. Jason draws upon his part in the tragedy (along with his experiences with an absentee father) to create a comic book involving wormholes and parallel universes.

Rabbit Hole was directed for the screen by an unlikely choice in John Cameron Mitchell, known more for flamboyant pictures like Hedwig and the Angry Inch and the art-porn Shortbus. Mitchell gives the film a somber tone without devolving into soap opera melodrama. Yet, Mitchell cannot hide the stage-y nature of the piece. Rabbit Hole sometimes feels less like a film and more like an actors’ showcase. As such, the performances are strong and make up for the lack of a cinematic feel.

Nicole Kidman (looking less plastic than usual) gives one of her best performances in years as a grieving mother filled with sorrow and misplaced anger. She snaps at her own husband, her pregnant and irresponsible sister (Tammy Blanchard), and another mother at the supermarket. She also offers one of the film’s highlights, a darkly comic moment responding to a mournful parents’ comfort in God. Dianne Wiest co-stars as Becca’s mother, Nat, who is still trying to come to grips with the death of her own son from a drug overdose years ago. It’s a performance largely forgotten during awards season, one that doesn’t dip into buckets of tears or histrionics. Yet, Wiest is there to convey the sense that sorrow never goes away and that “bearable” is likely the best anyone can do.

Rabbit Hole isn’t an entirely successful film. It is dry drama, but can be poignant and powerful at times.

Rating: ** ½ (*****)