Do you like sappy, corny, sentimental, inspirational sports movies? If you do, I have a recommendation for you. My family and I went to see The Final Season last night, and loved it. Of course, we all live in Iowa, so we aren't unbiased. The reviews you might read are being especially creative. I don't think I have read one that doesn't mention how corny the movie is, so I figured, "Why should I be different?" (See title.) 
For us, the movie was not only about the baseball team. The reason it rang true for us went beyond the issue of the teams last season. It obviously didn't have the same impact on the reviewers. That subject is the reason why this was "the final season." The tiny Norway, Iowa school district was consolidated with a neighboring, larger school district. In Iowa, as in other largely rural states, with dwindling populations, school districts have gone through numerous consolidations. The school district I am now a part of has gone through 3 consolidations. In each case the community I live in was the "big school." With a population of 1800 (the town, not the school). Two of the communities now have no school in their town, and these 2 communities have little of anything in their towns. The other community has the middle school and we have the elementary school and the high school (which also means we still have the sports in our community). Losing their school is a death knell for many small communities. Something that might have been inevitable, but it is a sign of the end, and surely hastens it. The loss of the school, or in Norway's case, the loss of the high school team, means the loss of a huge part of a small town's identity. When people in Iowa ask me where I live, many them recognize Ackley when I tell them that's where I live. For two reasons. US 20 used to run through Ackley, and many people drove through Ackley for many years. Many of them stopped to eat at the "Big Chief Drive-in", owned by members of my church. Until 5 years ago, when a new four lane US 20 was built 6 miles south of Ackley. Now the motel is closed and the drive-in is closed (except for a few months in the summer when they sell soft serve ice cream instead of the full menu they used to have.) The other reason people know Ackley is because of the number of times the football, the boys and girls basketball teams, and wrestlers from AGWSR (the A is for Ackley, of course) have gone to the state tournaments.
So for us, the part of the movie the critics saw as slow and pretty much unnecessary seemed to us to be very relevant. Town meetings concerning the consolidation, and the pain and sense of resignation of parents and students, including the baseball team, seemed very relevant to us. As the movie points out, the attitude of the "big cities" in Iowa is to consolidate all the little schools, to save money in the state budget. My last child graduated from AGWSR last spring, and I am all too aware of the problem of schools needing to be of a viable size in order to provide students with the resources they need to be able to be prepared for the future, but that doesn't make it easy. AGWSR is probably at most 5 years away from another merger, as our school enrollment keeps dropping. This time we are going to be the "little school." We are already sharing teachers with the school district we are most likely going to merge with.
But, lest I give you the impression that this is a really depressing movie, my family and the others in the theater last night laughed a number of times. Some of the things we laughed about might have been inside "Iowa" jokes, but I think most of them will translate to those who live outside the state. Be warned, this is a family friendly move. The hood wanna-be shipped to Norway from Chicago by his recently widowed father to live with grampa and grandma keeps trying to buy cigarettes and "weed", almost gets into a fight, and is chased down by the town cop when he "steals" grampa's truck (the cop of course deals with the situation by taking the kid home to talk with grampa, pretty much how things would be handled in a town like Norway). He also actually holds hands with the younger sister of a teammate. The coach actually kisses his love interest. And that's about as wild as it gets. So if you are looking for car chases, shooting, and sex, look elsewhere.
The movie is for the most part faithful to what really happened. The transfer from Chicago was added. In the final game, the pitcher the team is a fireball throwing pro-prospect. At least in the movie he is. The pitcher in the real game was good, but not that good. The father of one of the players did have a heart attack behind the wheel of the team bus. But it happened in the parking lot at one of the games, not on the road. But for the most part it happened pretty much the way the move shows it.
Anyway, if you made it all the way to this point, once again I recommend it. It has some great scenery, if you like corn. Here's the link to the movie's web site.
Final Season
For us, the movie was not only about the baseball team. The reason it rang true for us went beyond the issue of the teams last season. It obviously didn't have the same impact on the reviewers. That subject is the reason why this was "the final season." The tiny Norway, Iowa school district was consolidated with a neighboring, larger school district. In Iowa, as in other largely rural states, with dwindling populations, school districts have gone through numerous consolidations. The school district I am now a part of has gone through 3 consolidations. In each case the community I live in was the "big school." With a population of 1800 (the town, not the school). Two of the communities now have no school in their town, and these 2 communities have little of anything in their towns. The other community has the middle school and we have the elementary school and the high school (which also means we still have the sports in our community). Losing their school is a death knell for many small communities. Something that might have been inevitable, but it is a sign of the end, and surely hastens it. The loss of the school, or in Norway's case, the loss of the high school team, means the loss of a huge part of a small town's identity. When people in Iowa ask me where I live, many them recognize Ackley when I tell them that's where I live. For two reasons. US 20 used to run through Ackley, and many people drove through Ackley for many years. Many of them stopped to eat at the "Big Chief Drive-in", owned by members of my church. Until 5 years ago, when a new four lane US 20 was built 6 miles south of Ackley. Now the motel is closed and the drive-in is closed (except for a few months in the summer when they sell soft serve ice cream instead of the full menu they used to have.) The other reason people know Ackley is because of the number of times the football, the boys and girls basketball teams, and wrestlers from AGWSR (the A is for Ackley, of course) have gone to the state tournaments.
So for us, the part of the movie the critics saw as slow and pretty much unnecessary seemed to us to be very relevant. Town meetings concerning the consolidation, and the pain and sense of resignation of parents and students, including the baseball team, seemed very relevant to us. As the movie points out, the attitude of the "big cities" in Iowa is to consolidate all the little schools, to save money in the state budget. My last child graduated from AGWSR last spring, and I am all too aware of the problem of schools needing to be of a viable size in order to provide students with the resources they need to be able to be prepared for the future, but that doesn't make it easy. AGWSR is probably at most 5 years away from another merger, as our school enrollment keeps dropping. This time we are going to be the "little school." We are already sharing teachers with the school district we are most likely going to merge with.
But, lest I give you the impression that this is a really depressing movie, my family and the others in the theater last night laughed a number of times. Some of the things we laughed about might have been inside "Iowa" jokes, but I think most of them will translate to those who live outside the state. Be warned, this is a family friendly move. The hood wanna-be shipped to Norway from Chicago by his recently widowed father to live with grampa and grandma keeps trying to buy cigarettes and "weed", almost gets into a fight, and is chased down by the town cop when he "steals" grampa's truck (the cop of course deals with the situation by taking the kid home to talk with grampa, pretty much how things would be handled in a town like Norway). He also actually holds hands with the younger sister of a teammate. The coach actually kisses his love interest. And that's about as wild as it gets. So if you are looking for car chases, shooting, and sex, look elsewhere.
The movie is for the most part faithful to what really happened. The transfer from Chicago was added. In the final game, the pitcher the team is a fireball throwing pro-prospect. At least in the movie he is. The pitcher in the real game was good, but not that good. The father of one of the players did have a heart attack behind the wheel of the team bus. But it happened in the parking lot at one of the games, not on the road. But for the most part it happened pretty much the way the move shows it.
Anyway, if you made it all the way to this point, once again I recommend it. It has some great scenery, if you like corn.
Here's the link to the movie's web site.Final Season
