A timeless baseball classic!
Screenplay By: Phil Alden Robinson
Directed By: Phil Alden Robinson
Baseball is pure Americana, or at least it was. Field of Dreams exists on that plane where baseball is still the grand ole past time of America and it is the unifying force between men, boys, fathers, sons, brothers, and yes, even women, girls, moms, daughters and sisters. There has never been a movie that understands baseball and the bonds that it can form as much as Field of Dreams does. Picking up a glove and tossing a ball back and forth with your dad, or in my case my grandpa, is an experience that is hard to describe. Yet, Field of Dreams manages to describe that feeling and all that it entails with its beautiful end scene and with its poetic waxing’s on the sport of baseball and the role the father, or older male, figures play in the lives of young boys.
There isn’t much to Field of Dreams beyond that feeling of home that baseball can generate. It is a bit schmaltzy, there are a few miscues in continuity or scene selection that hold it back, and its story is a bit simplistic. But, all that being said the leads do a good job of carrying the film and of providing the necessary depth to the message of baseball and family.
Field of Dreams holds a special place for me because of how big of a role baseball has played in my life. It understands baseball and it understands how we perceive baseball and how it can be such an overriding passion for some of us. I highly recommend Field of Dreams for anyone that is into baseball, or for anyone that is into good sports movies period.
Rating:
***1/2
Cheers,
Bill Thompson
Bill's Movie Emporium 
Pingback: If You Build It, They Will Come…(Well, Not Exactly) | edSocialMedia
Before the Giants and Dodgers moved west, I listened to the World Series on the West Coast of Canada on the radio as a teen.
I can’t say I have a great feeling for American baseball, but I do have a personal connection to this film. In the mid 70s I took a creative writing seminar at the University of Victoria and one of my fellow students was W.P. Kinsella, the author of this piece! He was submitting stories for critique every week, some of them baseball stories, some about the Hobbema Indians in Alberta. It was amazing to watch him hone his craft, and later become justifiably famous!
That is very cool, I’d love to have some sort of weird connection story like that. Alas I haven’t met any people who have gone on to direct or write anything profound yet, but maybe one day. 🙂
Pingback: Field of Dreams (1989) | timneath
Pingback: MOVIE REVIEW | Field of Dreams (1989) – Bored and Dangerous