The Miracle Season

A film about a high school volleyball team in Iowa. The team won the state championship the previous season. Caroline, the captain, is its energy on court; she talks to everyone, leaves nobody out, and is known across the school. Her mother is ill. The cancer has advanced and the girl does not leave the hospital. Then there is an accident. Caroline collides on her moped one night and dies. The team falls apart. There is no training, matches are lost, and nobody wants to go on court. The coach makes a decision. They will try to finish the season. From there the film is a story of recovery. A run of matches, a losing streak, a win and the state tournament. Kelley takes over as captain. She does not want to fill her friend's place, and that is the film's most real conflict. The father's line runs separately. Ernie loses both his daughter and his wife in a short time and struggles to look after the team. What the narrative is interested in is not sport but continuing: the question of the film is not whether the match is won but going on playing when nobody is fit to play. The source is a real event. What happened in Iowa in 2011 was news across the country at the time, and the team's season really went this way. The narrative keeps to the template. The known structure of sports films is followed step by step; the motivating speech, the low point and the final match. The music keeps pointing at the feeling, and in some scenes that is too much. Helen Hunt, Erin Moriarty, Danika Yarosh and William Hurt are in the cast. Sean McNamara directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes sports films adapted from real events. Who it is not for: anyone looking for subtlety; the narrative aims directly at emotion and most of the characters are drawn with a single trait.