When it comes to baseball films, an oft used phrase by this Catholic reviewer is the reminder that the most successful hitters in the game fail around seventy percent of the time.  It is a useful statistic to keep in mind as a metaphor for the navigating life’s struggles.  This is what makes a title like Trouble with the Curve (2012) appropriate.  It is the dividing line between a professional and a rank amateur, their ability to make consistent contact with a breaking ball or off-speed pitch.  If you can do that, then you have a reasonable expectation of doing well in the sport.  Otherwise, you have other talents with which God has blessed you and it is time to discover them.  It is a moment I had to face as a young player, it is something with which the characters in this movie must reckon with, and one of the reasons why this is a solid piece of cinema.

The reason the aged Gus Lobel gets out of bed every morning, as we see at the beginning of Trouble with the Curve, is baseball.  Though advanced in years, he is still a scout for the Atlanta Braves.  Today, instead of looking at the amateur ranks, he goes to a minor league game where one of the prospects he signed, Billy Clark (Scott Eastwood), is in the midst of a slump.  Gus identifies the problem, which is the fact that Billy has not seen his parents in a while, and arranges for them to come to see him.  Speaking of being a parent, Gus has a daughter who also lives in Atlanta.  Her name is Mickey Lobel (Amy Adams), and she is a lawyer who is hoping to make partner at her firm.  Doing so would make her the first female in such a position, something her bosses ask her about during an interview.  She is poised and confident in her work ethic.  The person she is less composed around is Gus.  We see daughter and father having dinner together, but it is cut short when it is apparent that all he can pay attention to is the baseball game on the television in the diner.  Her walking out early is not his only problem.  The Major League Baseball (MLB) draft is nearing, and the Braves have their eyes on a hitting prospect in the North Carolina high school ranks named Bo Gentry (Joe Massingill).  Specifically, it is young executive Phillip Sanderson’s (Mathew Lilard) goal of bringing Gus into the Braves’ system.  He makes it clear that doing so will allow him to potentially replace either of his bosses: scouting director Pete Klein (John Goodman) or the team’s general manager, Vince (Robert Patrick).  Because Phillip is thought of as the future of the front office, the topic of what to do with Gus comes up, whose contract expires in three months.  Phillip is in favor of essentially forcing Gus to retire, a notion that angers Pete, who is a longtime friend of the old timer.  To help his friend, Pete convinces Vince to let Gus take a look at Bo.  Thus, not only does Gus have the pressure of evaluating a potential number one draft pick, but he is also dealing with macular degeneration.  It is an issue that Pete notices when he visits Gus to relay the scouting assignment.  Despite Gus being dismissive in his ornery way about there being any problem, Pete is concerned enough to contact Mickey about the matter.  Because she is in the middle of trying to earn a promotion, initially Mickey responds by saying she does not have the time to look into the matter.  All the same, she makes some inquiries and learns of the eye issues.  When she goes to Gus’ house to confront her dad about the results, he predictably tries to say that everything is fine.  Hurt by another dismissal, she leaves and he heads out on the road, though banging up his car along the way.  With some extra encouragement from Pete, Gus is therefore surprised when Mickey shows up at the first game at which he is watching Bo.  He orders her to return to Atlanta and keep working at making partner, but she refuses.  Another surprise is the presence of Johnny “The Flame” Flanagan (Justin Timberlake).  He had been scouted by Gus years back, but had blown out his pitching arm after being traded to the Boston Red Sox.  Instead of getting out of the game, he became a talent evaluator for the Red Sox, but with the hopes of moving into the broadcast booth.  Like everyone else, he is there to watch Bo.  Gus and Johnny pal around, but the young man’s eye is on Mickey.  For her part, since she refuses to go away, Gus decides to put her to work.  Having grown up with a baseball man as a father, she is as knowledgeable about the sport as she is of law.  The time they spend together is also an opportunity for her to try to understand why he pushed her away so many times over the decades.  The main reason is that her mother died when she was very young, and he did not know how to raise a daughter.  At first, he had taken her on the road.  However, as we are eventually told, he had lost track of her after a game and found her with a groundskeeper, about to be molested.  She does not remember this because she had been six then, but it caused him to have her be raised by relatives, and then go away to boarding school.  These wounds impact not only their relationship, but her inability to connect with potential dates.  This includes Johnny, though eventually she relents and they spend an adult evening together.  As for Bo, Gus determines with Mickey’s eyes and his hearing that the cocky teenager cannot hit a curve ball.  As such, Gus tells Johnny, and the Braves, not to draft Bo.  However, the Braves do so anyway, which leads to Johnny being fired, blaming it on Gus and Mickey.  Gus leaves North Carolina in shame, but Mickey is still there to discover Rigoberto “Rigo” Sanchez (Jay Galloway), a left-handed pitcher with a deadly curveball.  Rigo had been dismissed as the “peanut boy” by Bo, but Mickey convinces Pete to bring Rigo in for a try out.  The person Rigo throws to is Bo, who is unable to make any contact not only with the fastball, but with any of the other pitches.  Vince promptly fires Phillip and offers Gus a new contract.

Once the dust settles with the firings and new contracts at the end of Trouble with the Curve, Gus and Mickey walk out of the ballpark where they are greeted by Johnny.  The suggestion is that there are new beginnings, even for an aging baseball scout who is going blind.  As for Mickey, she had been snubbed for the promotion due to her spending time with her father, but they realize their mistake at the end when her replacement delivers a subpar performance.  Given the eye she displays by finding Rigo, there is the suggestion that she might go into her dad’s line of work.  In any case, there are possibilities, and they are all blessings from God.  The same can be said for all the characters, including Bo, even though he acts like an entitled brat throughout the film.  In the introduction I talked about how successful baseball players will experience a great deal of failure in their lives.  It is a difficult thing to handle, and I am not sure how anyone does it without faith.  At the same time, even believing in God does not make it easier to deal with challenges.  Christianity is not a religion that professes that belief makes problems disappear or that they will feel like a walk in the park, at least not in the Catholic way of professing.  What helps is remembering who God is, and that He has in store for us.  What helps is knowing that God is love.  When everything seems hopeless, we always have the boundless love that He has for us to fall back on in times of trouble.  To be sure, there is no kind of specific religious connection in the film.  It also takes the characters a long time to realize the true feelings they have for one another, but that is cinema for you.  Nonetheless, we see love’s healing nature here.  Just think how much greater it is when it comes from God.

Still, I would not call Trouble with the Curve a great movie.  It is its predictability that knocks it down a peg, but that did not take away from my enjoyment.  The fact that it is about baseball, my favorite sport, definitely helps.  I hope this all helps in your considerations as to whether you should watch it.