Column:

'Gracie' a bad sport

By Dan Moore

Published June 6, 2007

Gracie Allen, the comedienne, was known for a routine in which she would say something that sounded logical, but actually made no sense whatsoever. To avoid a pedestrian accident in her car, for example, she would decide to walk everywhere. "Gracie" the movie should be good, but put together as it is, it tends to, well, make no sense whatsoever.

The titular Gracie (Carly Schroeder) is inspired to try out for the soccer team when her star brother dies in a car accident. Because this is a sports movie starring a girl, there instantly arises a conspiracy of angry men to keep her off track (for reasons unknown), but she is determined to succeed on her own terms.

The main problem inherent in this formula is present: There's no time to make her antagonists into human beings, so these scowling caricatures play dirty and try to beat her down in a way that doesn't hold up to any examination unless we assume all the men in this movie are sociopaths.

What elevates "Gracie" above the countless Disney TV movies built on this assembly line premise is that the focus of the movie drifts from that grating girls-can't-play chorus to the girl actually trying to play. It goes from "Motocrossed" to "Rocky," and from unbearable to a passable telling of that heartier sports movie perennial: the hero's quest.

In fact, kept to that narrow focus, "Gracie" would have been an unequivocal success. Schroeder is a wonder with the limited material. She looks like a flapper disguised in athletic shorts, emoting with the slightest movement of her blue spotlight eyes or pouty mouth. In a role pioneered by the likes of Sylvester Stallone, she is almost too good. Dermot Mulroney, as the gruff, disbelieving father, does just the right amount of shouting and has the requisite epiphany in a convincing fashion.

Most importantly, this feels like a sports movie. The big game scenes, the heart of this sort of movie, are reminiscent of "The Natural." The players lit up beautifully in slow motion on an eerily dark, alien landscape, the tense soundtrack swelling and disappearing.

Unfortunately, "Gracie" the movie isn't content to be "just" about sports, and its attempts to show Gracie's development as a woman are embarrassingly ham-fisted and filled with blunt metaphors and loose plot ends. In lieu of conversations that would illuminate her condition, Gracie is mainly seen walking away from people who upset her until she decides something off camera and comes back without explanation.

There's a half-hearted attempt to have her rebel with men and alcohol, but that's a dead end in a movie like this, and by the end of the film, it is thankfully forgotten.

Gracie the comedienne had no issue with formulas. She played the same part, a "dizzy" version of herself, for 40 years. "Gracie" the movie, not content to repeat what works, is a mediocre 95-minute coming-of-age melodrama. But somewhere in it, there's a very good 80-minute sports movie.