The Natural

The Natural is a wistful sports movie that asks every person who views it to buy into its whimsy and mythologizing on show. If able to do so then it's a film of beguiling beauty, awash with the strength of the human spirit. Like the novel it's based on, the film recounts the experiences of Roy Hobbs, a man with great natural baseball talent, spanning his long but interrupted career in the sport. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards and tells an entertaining story that presents baseball as America's game and therefore, ultimately, above corruption.