These days,perhaps even more attempted than the penguin movie is the soccer movie. But “”Gracie”” is no “”Bend It Like Beckham.”” True, both awkward tweens are forbidden from playing the sport they love, but rather than relying on amusing, simplified anecdotes about a turbulent culture clash, the latest ode to America’s football underdog makes the game a somber one, dribbling in death, loss and deep-rooted family turmoil.
Carly Schroder stars in Davis Guggenheim’s “”Gracie,”” a cliche-dodging true story set before women’s soccer existed.
Based on the life of Elisabeth Shue – who plays Gracie’s mother, Lindsay Bowen – “”Gracie”” follows an adolescent’s fight to become the first female on her high school’s varsity soccer team at a time when girls’ soccer wasn’t an option. Because the year was 1978 (not to mention the film is loudly touted as semiautobiographical), what would we not believe? The tragic death of Gracie’s venerated older brother (a highly predictable dramatic twist – the uncomplicated, too-good-to-be-true character is so saintly that we know something has to happen to him) prompts the ambitious blonde (Carly Schroeder, “”The Lizzie McGuire Movie,”” “”Firewall””) to fight for his vacant place on the team. And, of course, she strives for the respect of her crazily competitive father Bryan Bowen, played stone-cold by a graying Dermot Mulroney (“”The Wedding Date,”” “”The Family Stone””), who pushes his three sons to be stars but refuses to train his lone daughter. Gracie only manages to snag her father’s attention after a barrage of angsty teen antics – carefully choreographed to classic ’70s music. Only then does dad finally changes his tune, realizing that soccer may be a more suitable extracurricular activity for his daughter than bar-hopping and making out with college boys in the backseat. Though Gracie soon proves a “”fierce”” (in the words of her mother) trainee, there are no magical Rocky-esque training montages here: Gracie’s goal is truly a long shot, smacking her with more instances of truth and far fewer moments of victory than the heroes of her inspired sport-flick predecessors.
Despite semiunavoidable genre cliches – reckless teenage turmoil, manufactured metaphors (i.e. the Bowens’ caged bird that “”will never fly””) and Gracie declaring, “”I am tough enough”” – “”Gracie”” often grips with the tight-laced vigor of a new pair of cleats. Schroeder gives a painfully sincere performance, and Davis Guggenheim (Academy Award-winning director of “”An Inconvenient Truth”” and, surprise, Shue’s husband) crafts a dark, rainy aesthetic that carries the film sincerely through its lows. Though it’s not a common soccer movie, “”Gracie”” is still one of those sports stories that takes itself very seriously – and after all, as the young star’s mother reminds us, “”It’s only a game.””