Review
RADIO
Starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Ed Harris and Debra Winger
Directed by Michael Tollin
Opens Friday, October 24
Check listings
If you are expecting a heartwarming tale about a community learning a little something about humanity from a mentally challenged person, Radio won’t disappoint.
A beloved small-town football coach (Ed Harris) develops a friendship with Radio (Cuba Gooding Jr.), a lonely man-boy whose solitary ramblings take him past the high school where coach Jones works his magic. After Radio suffers an appalling act of bullying from the players, Jones takes it upon himself to draw Radio into the community through association with the local football and basketball teams and ultimately, the high school. Jones meets Radio’s hardworking widowed mother, gives Radio a job on the football team and the pair develop a deepening friendship, all at the expense of Jones’s own family relationships. When Radio’s mother dies (you know she’s a goner when she tells Radio "I’ll always be here for you") you expect the rest of the story to fall into place.
But Radio isn’t adopted into Jones’s household, nor does he bring the football team out of its doldrums and lead it to victory in the championships. Radio is a more sophisticated movie than you might expect. Although founded on the same dubious moral and social ground as Forrest Gump, Radio thankfully doesn’t indulge in the worst excesses of sentiment associated with this type of Hollywood movie. There are plenty of scenes of back-slapping and hair-ruffling as Radio becomes an indispensable member of the community, but Radio’s influence on the town is subtle, spreading his own brand of good humour and delight in sports and life in general without the chocolate-box philosophy.
Ed Harris is believable as the man who just wants to do the right thing, although he’s not quite sure what that is or where it might lead. Debra Winger as his potentially disgruntled mate, coping with the demands of her husband’s coaching job and the needs of his new friend, is sympathetic. In her first scene, heading to bed with a copy of the Feminine Mystique tucked under her arm, she ruefully acknowledges the demands of her husband’s job, muttering "Ah, the first ‘I’ll be right up’ of the season." Gooding Jr. is convincing, although it’s difficult to disregard the star behind the performance.
Radio is a superior moral fable, playing mercilessly on the heartstrings while avoiding the worst elements of multiplex sentimentality. |
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