Overcomer

A film set in a small American town. The factory in the town is closing. Families move away, the number of pupils at the school falls and the basketball team breaks up. John coached that team. When the season is cancelled the school gives him another job: he will coach cross-country. There is one student on the team. Hannah has asthma. She runs but cannot get her breath; it also emerges that she has been stealing small things at school. John starts the training. At the same time he meets a man in hospital who has lost his sight, and it becomes clear that he is Hannah's father. She believes her father is dead. The two lines of the film join there: preparing for the race on one side, the girl learning her own past on the other. The narrative has an openly religious frame; the characters talk about faith and the film does not hide it. The race sections were shot on real courses and the technique of cross-country running is given its place. Alex Kendrick plays John; he also directed and wrote it with his brother. Aryn Wright-Thompson plays Hannah and Cameron Arnett the man in hospital. A suitable choice for anyone who likes American faith-based cinema and sports drama. For a viewer at a distance from that frame, the film delivers its message directly and does not open it to argument.