Treacly golf drama, ‘Short Game,’ shoots under par
True to its title, “The Short Game” comes up short in every way imaginable, from Frank Sanza’s flat direction to the cliched writing to the stilted acting. Nothing about it connects in a meaningful way, despite what should be an affecting tale of a high school golfer being cheered on to glory by his autistic brother.
All Sanza and his quartet of writers deliver is a succession of genre truisms culminating in the “big game,” or in this case, the Texas State High School Golf Tournament. Despite having a child of his own on the spectrum, Sanza ruefully does little to benefit autism awareness.
Owen Himfar, an actor with what was once labeled Asperger syndrome, does deliver as the little brother, but he’s repeatedly hemmed in by a script that concentrates too much on his sibling’s desperate need to regain his golf mojo. We seldom see the bros bonding or even conversing. If anything, Ben Krieger’s Jermey views Himfar’s Ethan as a burden, adding to the pressure he’s already under to land a golf scholarship, hopefully at the University of Texas.
If, like me, you’re on the spectrum, this is profoundly disappointing. It almost borders on exploitation, using Ethan as a prop to play off our sympathies and go “aww” whenever he does something adorable, which is often. Why not show us what it’s like being Ethan? His daily challenges to navigate a neurotypical world. We already know what it’s like being Jeremy; we’ve seen it played out dozens of times in other, mostly better, sports dramas.
Frankly, it’s lazy. More so when the filmmakers stoop to killing off a major character halfway through. Wasn’t it already enough for the Avery clan to deal with Mom’s (Katherine Cunningham) cancer and Dad’s (Mackenzie Astin) struggle to foot the bills for his wife’s treatments and Ethan’s alternative schooling? The person’s death is such a cheap play for sympathy that it feels like piling on. Worse, the ill-fated character is so underdeveloped, the pall it casts over the family seems a bit much.
Then there’s Jeremy’s teammate and BFF, Tommy (Tyler Lofton), who you’d swear was a direct descendant of Will Smith’s much reviled Bagger Vance, the “magic Negro” whose spirituality helped improve Matt Damon’s golf game. It’s much the same here, with Tommy as Jeremy’s golf whisperer.
He’s not the only one preaching the gospel. So does the movie, a thinly veiled faith-based flick that suggests only true believers will prevail in this mortal world. I guess that doesn’t bode well for Jeremy’s obnoxious, Richie Rich rival, Bruce (Adyn Alexander), yet another stock character whose only job is to be an a-hole. Same for his pops, Mike (Jon Donahue), the ultimate stage dad. Push, push, push!
The big tourney, which fills the production’s final 30 minutes, is about as exciting as watching grass grow. It’s so chock full of sports flick tropes that you can practically predict when Sanza will pull them from his bag of overused tricks. No wonder his film putters.
Movie review
The Short Game
Rated: Not rated
Cast: Ben Krieger, Owen Himfar, Mackenzie Astin, Katherine Cunningham, Tyler Lofton, Emma Parks and Adyn Alexander
Director: Frank Sanza
Writers: David Parks, Larry Boatright, E. Joren Christensen and Florrie Laurence
Runtime: 95 minutes
Where: In theaters Aug. 29 (limited)
Grade: D
