Movie Review: 'The Miracle Season'

Caroline "Line" Found was a young force of nature in her too short 17 years. When she was killed in an accident, it left her small community in Iowa City, Iowa, devastated, especially the members of her championship volleyball team. Nineteen-year-old Danika Yarosh gives us a wonderful sense of this inspiring young lady in a very brief amount of screen time. So good is Yarosh that I never minded the pushy emotionalism of The Miracle Season.

With Line gone, the captaincy of the West High School Trojans volleyball team falls to her best friend Kelly (Erin Moriarty). Despite her struggles on the court, Kelly is the natural choice to take on her friends’ position of setter and team captain. Standing by her side is Line’s father, Ernie (William Hurt). While the loss of his beloved daughter immediately after the death of his wife from cancer, Ernie became a rallying point for Line’s memory.

Based on a true story, The Miracle Season also features Helen Hunt as the Katherine "Bres" Bresnahan who is one of the more celebrated volleyball coaches in the history of Iowa High School Volleyball. Hunt is the best part of this movie as instead of creating someone artificially inspirational, she sticks closely to portraying Bres as she is. Coach Bresnahan was a loving person but also awkward and lonely. She was no nonsense and Line was lots of nonsense and the two bonded over their loving differences.

I don’t mean to write that as if I know these people, I don’t, but the movie gives a great sense of who these characters were and are. I did follow the real life story in 2011, being an Iowa native, and West even played my Alma Mater North Scott High School during this incredible, miracle season. The film is strong in the way it makes these characters easily relatable, deeply sympathetic and lovable.

That said, The Miracle Season isn’t a particularly special movie, certainly not as special as this real life story. The film adheres to a very familiar structure of a sports movie with very typical and familiar beats. Volleyball is a visually interesting sport and this movie does well to portray it in ways that even non-fans can follow but the shooting of the volleyball scenes is just okay.

The emotional elements of The Miracle Season are quite strong because these characters are so likable. The true story has inherent sympathies that don’t require anything of the movie and director, Sean McNamara simply has to get out of the way and let them bring us to tears with their tears. It’s hard not to feel a deep sense of loss here, especially with Ms. Yarosh creating such a lovely impression of Line.

William Hurt's late career coasting continues in The Miracle Season. It's not that Hurt is bad in the movie, he's far too talented an actor to be bad. Rather, Hurt, like much of the teenage cast, isn't asked for much beyond going through the motions and getting easy mileage out of this very emotional true sports story.

The Miracle Season isn’t special from a filmic standpoint but it’s harmless in the way it regurgitates the sentimentality of the true story. The acting is committed and moving with Hunt in the lead and the lovely young actresses doing their part. And then there is Hurt who may be on auto-pilot late in his career but he can still monologue with the best of them and he has one monologue in this movie that I found irresistible in its basic, decent humanity and compassion.