Cinema Hype

Picture this: You’re twelve years old. You’re in the throes of a reasonably successful career as starting catcher for your junior-high softball team. You think that maybe you could be kind of good at this (You’re wrong, but you don’t know that yet). You play softball morning, noon, and night. Soon, a movie comes out. A movie about women playing professional baseball. It stars Geena Davis as a tough, gifted catcher; the climax of the movie takes place during a crucial play at home plate. A really, really sad Madonna song plays during the credits. Are your eyes closed? Are you with me?

Then you see why A League of Their Own was destined to be in my DVD collection.

I’ve long had a weakness for sports movies–after each of the three Mighty Ducks movies, I vowed I’d learn to play ice hockey–but A League of Their Own was different, at the time: it was about my sport. I wanted to be Dottie Hinson, in much the same way that I wanted to be Mary Lou Retton when I was four (neither worked out, sadly). It seemed within reach, sort of. I saw this movie three times in the theater and countless times afterwards, and it always makes me want to get out and play a little.

Also, inspirational athletes aside, I like it. For one thing, there’s no faulting the cast–Davis, Tom Hanks, Madonna (in a rare non-disastrous film appearance), Jon Lovitz, David Strathairn, a young Rosie O’Donnell, and loads of good but lesser-known actors (Tea Leoni! Joey Slotnick!) in smaller roles. What always resonated with me, though, was the relationship between Dottie (Davis) and Kit (Lori Petty), which I now realize is the product of good writing and strong character development. The conflicts between the sisters are the results of their characters–who they are at their cores–and not so much of how they act towards one another. The script develops the tension nicely and maintains that integrity even as the climax is resolved. As a writer and a viewer, I can appreciate the strong structure going on there.

Other than the strength of the writing, the details and side-plots going on around the two sisters are excellent. It’s the ups and downs of the whole team that make it so infectious: we see the women, get to know them, see them laugh and cry and dance and love and play baseball in the house. We hear the famous “There’s no crying in baseball!” scene. It’s about sisterhood in more than one sense, and the Rockford Peaches aren’t not so different from women we know, which is kind of an exciting thought. That’s why I never get tired of watching this movie.

The upshot: A League of Their Own has aged well. Far better than my softball career, anyway.