FIELD OF DREAMS .. 4.0****

 

        This past Sunday, being Father’s Day, Sara and I decided to watch one of our favorite “feel good” movies, “Field of Dreams”, which also happens to be one of my top 5 “sports movies”.  It was a fine movie for Father’s Day because at the core of the story is a father/son relationship and the redemption  the son seeks.

 

I truly believe that every once in a blue moon, a movie comes along that uniquely  projects a sense of wonder  and the power of dreams. The title says it all.  "Field of Dreams” and since its release in 1989 it has become an American classic.  This film  reaffirms  what we learned from Hollywood in the forties, that dreams can come true and people can be inspired and changed  by what they choose to believe in , no matter how improbable that may be.

 

Kevin Costner plays Ray Kinsella, an Iowa corn farmer. One day, while roaming aimlessly through his cornfield, he hears a  voice saying the words that have become synonymous with the film itself: "If you build it, he will come." He is compelled by the strange message  and comes to believe that those simple words means he is to build a baseball diamond in part of his corn field. After encouragement from his wife (Amy Madigan)  and to the sheer amazement of his gawking neighbors, he does just that and after a while a troupe of ghostly players, led by the legendary Shoeless Joe Jackson, show up and start playing.  The film then takes a turn with a fascinating road trip that curves eventually back into the storyline quite brilliantly. Ray receives a second message which he believes means he should go to Chicago and get a famous writer from the 1960s,Terence Mann (played wonderfully by James Earl Jones), to come visit his new ball field. At first Mann resists Ray’s invitation, but after going to a Red Sox game in Fenway Park with Ray and experiencing a true moment of wonderment, he too is overcome  by the power of the field's magic. So he goes with Ray  on  a mission to track down an obscure major league player  who got in  one game in the big leagues and then left to pursue medicine. Burt Lancaster wonderfully plays  Archie 'Moonlight' Graham.  This was Lancaster's farewell performance on the big screen, being that of  a simple country doctor, the kind that has regrettably vanished from our society, and what a great performance it is.

 

One of the many things I appreciated about this film was the ending. Everything builds up to it, and then it ends on a perfect, serene note. It would have been so easy to tack on an extra scene or two or try to tie everything up with a nice bow  but that one single final  scene brilliantly sums up everything .

           

 "Field of Dreams" is one of the most unique movies I've ever seen, and  one of the best. My favorite movies, especially “feel good” movies, produce an amazing feeling of warmth and grace  that leaves me in awe of the film. "Field of Dreams" is exactly like that, a masterful piece of moviemaking that overwhelms you with its wonder and positive qualities . This is the kind of movie Hollywood should be reeling out more often…..and proof that “if you make a fine family film, people will come” !!

 

Trust me when I say that you should see this movie. It doesn't matter if you have seen it before (that may make it even better as it did for me) . Rent it or buy it, just don’t miss out on a “MUST” see movie.

 

Clark