Field of Dreams

3/4

Starring: Kevin Costner, James Earl Jones, Amy Madigan, Ray Liotta

Rated PG (probably for Mild Language)

If you build it, he will come.

I can't decide if that line is mysterious or ridiculous.  Perhaps both.  Particularly if you hear it in the middle of a cornfield and no one can hear it but you.

That's what happens to Ray Kinsella (Costner), who is a bit confused at this, not unreasonably.  The voice continues until it leads to a vision: if he builds a baseball field on his farm, the long dead Shoeless Joe Jackson will appear.  Even Ray thinks this is lunacy, but the thought nags at him.  Finally, he decides to throw caution to the wind, sacrifice a huge amount of his cornfield, and build a baseball field.  And what do you know?  Shoeless Joe (Liotta) does appear.  Thus begins a strange odyssey that will take Ray all over the country and into the past.  But his journey threatens to bring him financial ruin.

"Field of Dreams" is a story about many things: pursuing a dream, finding your destiny, and making peace with your past.  Ray, and the people he comes across in his journey, are all in one way or another suffering from a lack of fulfillment, and it's through Ray's obsession that they can in some way find peace.  We can all relate to this, which is probably why "Field of Dreams" is so beloved.  The idea of righting wrongs or achieving something we desperately wanted is appealing, even if it's only tangentially.  Connections to Frank Capra are entirely appropriate.

The acting is solid.  Kevin Costner is an effective choice as this modern day Jimmy Stewart.  He's an ideal everyman who is obsessively pursuing his goal.  Costner's role is tricky; he must get us to sympathize with a man who does insane things based on faith.  The actor pulls it off.  James Earl Jones adds some gravitas (his specialty) as a cranky former writer who shares Ray's obsession.  Amy Madigan is fine as Ray's spunky wife.  And Ray Liotta finds just the right note to play the spectral Shoeless Joe Jackson, despite the fact that he looks nothing like the man.  Burt Lancaster has a wonderful cameo performance as a doctor (this was his last film role).

This is not a perfect film.  That it's corny and manipulative doesn't bother me.  Such descriptors come with the territory in films like this.  But the screenplay needed another rewrite to smooth over the leaps of logic that the narrative sometimes goes through.  And as good as Burt Lancaster's big scene is, the plot device needed to make it work doesn't really work.  Amy Madigan gets a big scene involving school censorship that feels awkward and not very funny (much as I agree with her passionate defense of free speech in the classroom).  Finally, the subplot involving Ray's painful past with his father isn't developed enough to really pay off.

"Field of Dreams" is a nostalgia-filled fantasy (can a movie featuring baseball be free of sentiment?).  Such films are hailed as masterpieces when they work or are viciously torn apart if they don't.  Imperfect as it may be, it works.