‘The Natural’ (1984) — does it hit a home run?
Will: Alrighty, so we’ve watched The Natural, starring Robert Redford.
Sam: Want to give us a rough outline of the plot?
Will: It’s a pretty simple — it’s the 1910s, and he’s a young baseball prodigy about to start a hugely successful career, but something terrible happens and his career doesn’t really kick off. We join him years later when he tries again to become a big star, even though he’s old and stuff.
Sam: This is true.
Will: But answer me this — baseball, thumbs up or thumbs down?
Sam: I just don’t get it.
Will: I know right.
Sam: It looks fun and all, but I just don’t get how there can be so many movies about it. It’s not like boxing, which usually works as a good metaphor for inner conflict. It’s hard to do metaphors with baseball.
Will: IT’S BLOODY ROUNDERS.
Sam: Is it because we’re not American?
Will: Presumably… and we have to respect that for millions of Americans (and Americanised Japanese people) baseball is a big damn deal. And I always get pissy when people talk shit about cricket from a position of ignorance.
Sam: So what are we missing?
Will: I don’t know. I went to a baseball game in Seattle and asked the American guy I was with to explain the magic of it, and he was like, ‘I dunno. It’s just like, something to watch while you’re having a beer.’ I don’t think he was the best person to introduce me.
Sam: That doesn’t sound like it would make a good movie.
Will: Speaking of which — we watched The Natural!
Sam: Which I loved!
Will: Say whaaaaat?
Sam: I genuinely really enjoyed it.
Will: It’s happened. We disagree about a film.
Sam: What we do now?
Will: Fight to the death?
Sam: Nah.
Will: Alright, let’s settle this with a game of baseball.
Sam: How would that work?
Will: It wouldn’t. That’s the problem.
Sam: Alright then — let’s talk this through.
Will: Why did you like it?
Sam: I really got drawn into the time period, and the young Robert Redford had a Clark Kent-y air about him. He had such a genuine energy I wanted to see him succeed!
Will: The film gaslighted you into liking it. It was sentimental and phoney and American and 80s and meh.
Sam: There’s an incident at the end of the first act that kills his career as a young man, which really took me by surprise. It’s a real twist… partially because I knew the story was about an older baseball player, so I assumed he was already old at the start. The time jump really threw me.
Will: That doesn’t mean it’s a good twist. That just means you were being dumb.
Sam: To be fair, he was forty-eight in this movie, and playing a nineteen-year-old at the start.
Will: Holy shit, fair enough — your confusion was valid. I guess I’m just particularly sensitive to narrative cues and context.
Sam: If I was to play a character twenty-eight years younger than myself, I’d be a one year old! And I don’t think I could pass for that.
Will: You do have very short hair. And I can barely understand what you’re saying sometimes.
Sam: Whey aye man, you always kna what I’m gannin on aboot.
Will: Shut your geordie blithering this instance!
Sam: Alright, so the plot got increasingly absurd as it went on. But the opening pulled me in so well that I didn’t mind too much. I was genuinely heartbroken that he couldn’t continue his baseball career! As someone who has just stumbled out of his twenties, and feels that the window to start doing great things is closing, I really related to him.
Will: Ah man. I can’t make a joke about that.
Sam: Pity me.
Will: I just thought the opening was so corny.
Sam: I mean, it was literally corny — it was set in the mid-west after all.
Will: The film turned me off with its Reagan-era, Disneyfication, happy ending, America is the best, audiences are dumb, laughter track over comedies, take some happy pills, the Vietnam War never happened, repress your demons, hard questions are boring, just keep smiling ethos. We’re living in a more cynical, but far more mature time now. We expect more from our movies than hokey sentimentality.
Sam: So you didn’t feel the escapism?
Will: No. And I guess with some corny films I can. But there was nothing to relate to here, so I just rolled my eyes repeatedly at the stupid plot, and the 2D characters, and the shitty portrayal of women — where they’re either evil temptresses or passive, virginal angels. I mean, the main passive, virginal angel even gets lit up by sunlight in a moment that magically bestows him extra baseball skill at a critical moment in the match. PER-LEASE.
Sam: It was a bit frustrating that he had seemingly magical baseball skills, which didn’t require him to practise.
Will: He was a natural Sam, that’s the point.
Sam: Oooh! That’s the title! Now I understand!
Will: You are past it, christ.
Sam: What am I like? *steps on rake*
Will: He literally makes his own bat out of a tree that was hit by lightning, and calls it ‘wonderboy’.
Sam: Did they rip off that Simpsons episode?
Will: Which episode?
Sam: The episode where Homer makes his own bat out of a tree that was hit by lightning, and he calls it ´wonderbat´.
Will: I’m sure it was just a coincidence.
Sam: So, what’s our takeaway from the movie?
Will: That hokey American movies are sometimes loved by people who should know better.
Sam: I think this global pandemic is making you cynical.
Will: All people need to know about this film is that it’s dated and rubbish, and that you only liked it for some weird sentimental old man reason.
Sam: I can’t argue with that. What are we watching next?
Will: Gimmie Shelter, a documentary about the Rolling Stones from 1970, which chronicles a disastrous end to one of their tours.
Sam: Did it end their careers?
Will: I’ve never heard of them, so I guess so.
Sam: Another great band cut down in their prime. Tragic.
The next film: Gimmie Shelter (Albert Maysles, David Maysles and
Charlotte Zwerin, 1970)
