Video review: "The Miracle Season"

“The Miracle Season” is a pretty typical sports flick, with a few worthwhile exceptions.

It focuses on volleyball, not historically a cinematic gold mine, and features a high school girls’ team. I’m trying to even think of another recent women’s sports movie -- “Bend It Like Beckham” is all I can come up without resorting to Google, and that was 16 years ago.

More importantly, this drama features not one but two Oscar winners in leading roles: Helen Hunt as Kathy “Brez” Bresnahan, the longtime coach of West High School Iowa City, and William Hurt as Ernie Found, a doctor and father of the team’s best player, Caroline aka “Line” (Danika Yarosh).

Line is an exuberant personality who would be the center of attention even if she wasn’t captain of the team, which has a long string of state championships under its belt. When she tragically dies early on, it shakes up the entire team, and community.

Erin Moriarty plays Kelly, Line’s best friend and a marginal player on the team. She suddenly finds the mantle of leadership thrust into her hands, and struggles with the role. There’s also conflict with Brez, who is aces at the X’s and O’s of the game but not really a touchy-feely type. She learns to come out of her shell a bit and coach them not just in the game, but how to handle their emotions after a devastating loss.

The movie -- directed by Sean McNamara from a screenplay by Elissa Natsueda and David Arron -- follows the traditional path of sports movies. The team goes from presumed favorites to underdogs stringing up a bunch of losses or forfeitures. But they eventually get their act together to take another run at the state title.

Nobody is going to confuse “The Miracle Season” with groundbreaking cinema. But it takes a tried-and-true formula, executes it well and tosses in some superlative acting and spotlighting of an overlooked sport to give it distinction.

Video extras are disappointingly slim. There’s a single documentary short, “Star Player,” and a gallery of production stills.

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Review: "The Miracle Season"

Movies like “The Miracle Season” flow like the tide -- you know exactly what it is and where it’s going. Most sports flicks possess this same sort of inexorable pull: confidence, challenge, struggle and then triumph.

There are not many surprises in “The Miracle Season,” but it’s a well-executed film that hits all the right notes and doesn’t let the on-field action overwhelm the human story. Having performances by two world-class actors -- Helen Hunt and William Hurt, both Oscar winners -- doesn’t hurt, either.

Directed by Sean McNamara (“Soul Surfer”) from a script by Elissa Natsueda and David Aaron Cohen, it’s based on the true story of the girls’ volleyball team at West High School in Iowa City. (Tax-credit-friendly Vancouver subs in for Iowa.) After winning the state championship in 2010, the team was crushed by the sudden death of its captain, best player and irrepressible leader, Caroline “Line” Found.

After forfeiting or losing the entire early season, the team comes together to make another run at the title. I won’t spoil things by saying how it turns out, but if you have to guess then you haven’t seen a lot of sports flicks.

(“Rocky” remains near the pinnacle in part because it’s one of the very few where the victory is less important than how the big match plays out.)

Erin Moriarty is the main character as Kelly, Line’s best friend. She’s a bit shy and retiring -- everyone is, compared to Line -- and isn’t nearly the dominant player. Indeed, as their senior year opens, Kelly doubts she’ll even make the starting squad. But Line is indefatigable, offering boundless encouragement and friendship to literally everyone she meets.

Played by Danika Yarosh in an attention-grabbing performance, Line is the sort of person who will drive by a family moving into their new home, spot a cute boy, slam on the brakes and hop out to introduce herself and invite him to their party the next day.

Hurt plays Line’s dad, Ernie, a surgeon/farmer who’s also dealing with a severely ill wife. The movie grants him his own journey, including struggling with his faith in the face of tragedy in a sensitive way we don’t usually see in mainstream Hollywood films. A quaint, somewhat bumbling figure who likes to perform corny magic tricks for the team, Ernie gradually takes on a sort of accepting grace.

Hunt has a difficult part as the coach, Kathy “Brez” Bresnahan. She’s a very interior person who has always given her girls tremendous expertise on the court but not a lot of emotional support off it. But the death of her best player forces Brez out of her comfort zone, making her relate to the team members as people rather than pieces to a winning season.

The other team members form the usual sort of Greek chorus of supporting players. Natalie Sharp is Mack, the tough, aggressive one; Lillian Doucet-Roche plays Taylor, the freshman lacking in confidence; Nesta Cooper is Lizzie, who plays with her emotions on her sleeve.

The volleyball scenes are energetic without overstaying their welcome. There haven’t been too many volleyball movies that I can think of, but “The Miracle Season” shows the kinetics and power of the sport. The sound crew also underlines each thump of the ball with a fat bass undertone.

You won’t be surprised by anything that happens in this movie, but darned if you’ll be able to resist having those ol’ heart strings plucked.

Video review: "The Sessions" and "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"

I’ve never attempted a double video review before, but the simultaneous release of “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and “The Sessions” make for a perfect opportunity. Both are small, heartfelt, exquisitely acted dramas about people living on the margins of their community. And each film was virtually ignored in the Academy Award nominations.

In “The Sessions,” John Hawkes plays Mark, a man in his late 30s who is paralyzed and lives inside an iron lung. Frustrated with his virginity, he retains a sex therapist named Cheryl (Helen Hunt) to help bring him into adulthood, as he puts it.

Their story goes on from there, with unintended emotional attachments growing. The film contains a lot of flesh, but writer/director Ben Lewin grabs the audience in the heart, not clutches the loins.

“Perks” may just be the best high school movie of the last two decades. Writer/director Stephen Chbosky, who adapted the film from his own novel, perfectly captures the moods and fears of the teenage soul. Charlie (Logan Lerman) is a smart, outcast underclassman who gets taken under the wing of Patrick (Ezra Miller) and Sam (Emma Watson), a pair of popular but misfit seniors.

Charlie slowly starts to come out of his shell, while Sam and Patrick are beset by their own respective problems. "Perks" is a wonderfully observant portrait of young people forging their identity in the crucible of high school.

In a film year of highs and lows, these two stood head and shoulders above the crowd … despite Oscar’s snub.

Video extras for "Perks" are decent, including a making-of featurette, deleted scenes and some unedited footage. It also boasts two separate commentary tracks, one with Chbosky alone and a second joined by his cast. Commentaries with both the principle actors and filmmakers tend to be the most engaging.

Video details for "The Sessions" were unavailable at press time.

Movie (both films): 3.5 stars out of four
Extras ("Perks"): 3 stars

Review: "The Sessions"

Helen Hunt stands there naked – gloriously, completely and unconcernedly nude. She does not make any attempt to cover herself up or turn away, seeking the shadows. She’s just … there. All there.

This brazen, lingering show of flesh is notable because it is so different from our experiences with major stars like Hunt, who has won an Oscar and will surely be nominated for another for “The Sessions.” It’s a movie about sex that shows a whole lot of sex, but isn’t sex-obsessed.

This film grabs you in the heart rather than the loins.

Hunt behaves like this because her character, Cheryl, is a sex therapist hired to help a severely disabled man lose his virginity. Her body is her tool in trade, and she employs it without reservation or obfuscation. And the fact that she is so matter-of-fact about being naked soon renders it as no big deal for the audience, too.

Her client, Mark O’Brien, suffered from polio as a child and has lost all movement below the neck. He spends most of his time encased in an iron lung, and even when free of it must be wheeled around on a gurney by a helper.

This setup may sound like a crazy Hollywood concoction, but Mark and Cheryl and their story are real. A poet and journalist, O’Brien wrote about his experiences seeing a sex surrogate, and was the subject of a 1997 documentary short that won an Academy Award.

John Hawkes gives the performance of his career as Mark. Hawkes spends the entire movie horizontal, his chest heaved upwards in a rictus curve and his face tilted three-quarters upside down. But it’s the rich emotional center of this personification, not the physical tics and contortions, that make it certain he will join Hunt in being honored by the Academy.

Playing a man 15 years younger than himself, Hawkes employs a high voice that’s somewhere between impish and sprightly. Though he’s in his late 30s, Mark is troubled by his virginity and the way his sexual urges have gone unmet. “I need intercourse to prove I’m an adult,” he says.

Here’s another twist: Mark’s confidante is literally his father-confessor. Father Brendan (William H. Macy) is the parish priest at Mark’s church, who befriends him and offers advice – and tacit blessing – on his sexual adventure. The film approaches Mark’s Catholic faith with respect, but takes note of how it may have contributed to his inhibitions.

Soon enough Cheryl and Mark meet, and she begins tutoring him in the ways of physical intimacy. His first experiences are … rather abrupt, shall we say. Thus Mark proves that he is, in fact, quite normal when it comes to initial experiences at sex.

Things move on from there. Cheryl, who likes to keep a professional relationship with her clients, tells Mark up front that their time together will be limited to six sessions. The idea is to give her clients the tools and instruction they need to enjoy healthy sexual lives without them transferring an emotional attachment onto her.

But this time, Cheryl finds it is her who is developing feelings for this awkward, intelligent and funny man. We see a little glimpse of her home life (Adam Arkin plays the husband) and see why she would crave emotional intimacy in the same way Mark yearns for the physical side.

Writer/director Ben Lewin, who adapted the screenplay from O’Brien’s own article, has delivered a masterwork. "The Sessions" has a quirky but deep authenticity.

3.5 stars out of four