May 24, 2003

Movie explanation, please

I caught the tag end of The Natural this afternoon, after eating KFC with the family to celebrate my niece's 16th birthday (I got her a movie coupon book. She loved it.). I am a long-standing baseball fan, I like Redford just fine, the rest of the cast (Basinger, Brimley, Close, Duvall) is wonderful, and the ending is super; now will someone please explain the whole second act to me?

Thank you.

PS: Yes, I have seen it before; so?

Posted by Linkmeister at May 24, 2003 05:31 PM
Comments

I didn't know that movies came in units of "acts". So which portion of The Natural are you talking about?

What steams me is that they gave it a happy ending.

Posted by: N in Seattle at May 24, 2003 09:48 PM

I was being polite to all the reviewers at IMDB; they seem to describe the film that way. First act: boy grows up, gets shot. Second act: interval. Third act: redemption.

Somehow I expected that along the way there would eventually be an explanation for the shooting; I grant you that the original event from which Malamud seemingly took the idea (Eddie Waitkus of the Phillies shot in hotel room by ostensibly deranged woman) was never satisfactorily explained either, but this is Hollywood!

As you say, unlike the novel (novella?), they did manage to give it a happy ending; so why not give some sort of reason for the shooting?

Posted by: Linkmeister at May 24, 2003 09:56 PM

I must agree with you on this one. I have always liked the movie, but I have always wondered just what "the rest of the story" was.

f.

Posted by: fred at May 25, 2003 01:04 AM

I think I can explain the shooting .... Barbara Hershey's character (pathologically) wants to kill those who are the "best there ever was." (There does not have to be an expressed reason because she's crazy.)

At first she's isolated "the Whammer" as the best, then Roy Hobbes beats "the best" and shows himself to be the "best there ever was." In addition, Roy _says_ he wants to be remembered as the "best there ever was in the game." He's a victim of his own pride. When she shoots him, he (seemingly) loses his chance to be the best there ever was.

After the shooting, Hobbes does not express vanity about his ability. He is humble about his past and about his playing.

Only when Memo (sp?) starts "showing him off" does his luck turn bad. (Pride, again.) Once he regains his humility (through the poison and the bullet), he can then excel and leave the game a success. (Then the whole Hollywood ending about going back home and raising his son, etc.)

So. I think it's about pride and its consequences. There's also the inherent misogynistic sentiment (women are the cause of evil), but I won't go there. Of course, I've read other criticism focusing on luck (and lost luck), but vanity and pride work for me.

Feel free to disagree or discuss (and, no, I've never read Malamud's novella).

My, how I do run on ....

Posted by: shelley at May 25, 2003 07:47 AM

What's to explain? I've never understood it fully either, but this movie has three of the most beautifully shot scenes ever -- the afternoon "magic hour" quality at the railroad, the big home run with the now-over-used background crescendo, and the closing catch scene. If anyone ever asks me why I used to love baseball, this movie is one of the best at capturing the soul the grand game used to have.

Posted by: Skatemom at May 28, 2003 10:52 AM

hmmm. i haven't seen the flick in years and Eli hasn't seen it. popcorn here we come.

:-)

Posted by: deborah at May 29, 2003 06:32 PM