Back in the early 1970s, actress Elisabeth Shue was a rarity, a female soccer player who had to become one of the boys to play, because there was no girls team. Shue plays the mother of a character inspired by her experience as well as a family tragedy she shared with brother Andrew, who plays a teacher and collaborated on the story with director Davis Guggenheim, who’s married to Elisabeth. Got that? Actual teenager Carly Shroeder plays the title character, a Jersey girl who gets serious about wanting to play after her brother dies in an auto accident. (Unfortunately, the male actors she plays with are in their 20s and thus unrealistically large.) While it pretty much follows the formula for an inspirational underdog movie, it avoids some of the worst excesses. Dermot Mulroney manages to pave over some of the inconsistencies in his working-class dad role, and Shroeder’s a delight.
Soccer players will relish the emphasis on the training regiment and drills Gracie subjects herself to. Moms and dads will be pleased with the PG-13 (but close to PG) view of teen life as well as the vintage soundtrack, and teens and younger kids alike will respond to the heroine’s drive and independence. Yes, it probably wasn’t necessary to have half a dozen different characters speak variations of the “girls can’t do that” theme. We get it—there was discrimination. But, judging by the cheers I heard at my preview screening, the girls and boys in the audience probably won’t care about the cliché elements. Unlike the world of high school sports, family films are one area where girls are still struggling to achieve parity, so this may even things out a bit.
PS: Could someone please edit the scene with the mailbox saying “The Bowen’s” out of the DVD version? Ugh.
[reviewed 5/31/07]
IMDB link
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