Field of Dreams

I was able to see Field of Dreams on the big screen last fall but it was so much fun to see it again as part of the TCM Big Screen Classic series yesterday.  Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) is a struggling Iowa farmer who hears a voice telling him to build a baseball diamond in the middle of his corn field.  At first his wife Annie (Amy Madigan) is skeptical but gives her consent when she sees how passionate he is about doing something spontaneous.  When building it causes financial hardship, Ray wonders why the voice asked him to do it.  At first he thinks it is so "Shoeless" Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) and the other Chicago White Sox players who were banned from baseball for intentionally losing the 1919 World Series can play again.  Then he thinks it could be so Archibald "Moonlight" Graham (Burt Lancaster) can have the chance at bat that he missed out on during his one and only game in the Major League.  Then he sees that this experience has given a reclusive writer named Terrence Mann (James Earl Jones), who was once popular in the 1960s but has now become disillusioned, something to believe in again.  But eventually he realizes that baseball is a way for him to make peace with his father (Dwier Brown) who loved the game.  To be sure this feel-good movie is a nostalgic ode to baseball but it is ultimately about the power of a dream, the importance of family, and the need for redemption and reconciliation with baseball as the unifying theme.  As evidenced by the troubled relationship between the radical Ray and his conservative father, there are so many things that can divide people but there are also many things, like baseball, that can unite us and that is a great message for the world today.  This movie is so charming because Costner is incredibly endearing as Ray, the cinematography is stunning, and the score by James Horner is beautifully atmospheric.  I highly recommend it!  You have one more chance to see it on the big screen on Wednesday (go here for tickets and information).

Note:  I think this move resonates so deeply with me because my Dad and I have very different world views but the thing that unites us in an unbreakable bond is our love for a game!  In our case the game is hockey, not baseball (we're Canadian), but the sentiment is exactly the same.