Currently Streaming on HBO Max
By Roberto Leal
Steve Acevedo’s Love and Baseball Recently Screen at the Mexican-American Film & TV Festival and Took Home The Best Picture Award
You don’t have to be a baseball fan to enjoy Love and Baseball. But if you like a good romantic comedy, smart dialog, interesting characters, and a clever plot then writer/director Steve Acevedo’s (Queen of the South, Coded bias), recent Mexican-American Film and TV Festival prize-winning film, is a must-see for you. Cinematically it knocks it right out of the park. Acevedo cleverly divides his three-act film into a series of romantic brief encounters encapsulated within iconic and thematically corresponding baseball games titled Game 1, Game 2 and Game 3.
Game 1: Batter Up, Play ball
Max Arcinega (Breaking Bad, Better Ask Saul), is Will, an LA-based cinematographer of documentaries and a rabid Dodger fan. He shares a house with Chris played by Brett Jacobsen (Flash Forward, Chronological Order). Will is preparing to leave for New Mexico for six months to shoot a documentary. He stops by the house to pick up a few things before departing.
Unbeknownst to Will, Chris’s date for the evening, Michele, Tate Hanyok (The Office, Superstore), is in the house taking a shower. After she gets dressed, Will enters the house startling her. She grabs a baseball bat to defend herself. Will wonders out loud who the hell is this stranger in his house is. Michele feels threatened by this menacing intruder. Not exactly love at first sight.
After some cautious explanations and awkward introductions, Will and Michele engage in a fast-paced conversation that often feels like a verbal game of ping-pong. During this well-staged scene in which we just see two people talking, a connection develops between Will, the down-to-earth cinematographer who sees life through the prism of baseball and Michele, the philosophy major with an acute sense of whimsy.
By the end of this scene, or Game 1, they decide they want to see each other, but Will is leaving for New Mexico for a six-month documentary shoot. They share one tender kiss and a bittersweet goodbye with the hint of a promise they will meet again in six months.
Game 2: Bottom of the Ninth
Two years later Will is back from New Mexico. Much has happened in the ensuing two years they have not seen each other. Will has had an affair which resulted in him fathering a daughter. Michele and Chris have decided to marry and are throwing a party to celebrate. Chris invites his old housemate Will to the party.
When Will and Michele meet it’s a strained and uncomfortable reunion. The explanations for not staying in touch with each other ring a bit hollow and moot since so much time has passed. Yet it’s obvious there is still something special between them. However, Michele who is now teaching philosophy decides she has chosen another path for herself and asks Will to leave. Is it game over?
Game 3: Extra Innings
“It ain’t over until the fat lady sings”—Yogi Berra
Another two years go by and Michele is in the midst of divorcing Chris. Will shows up at the house where Michele is packing boxes and moving stuff out of the house. At this point, it looks like a future together for Will and Michele is uncertain. Will seems hopeful but tentative. Michele seems reluctant and guarded.
It looks like Will is leaving for the last time. Michele calls to him from the porch. Will tells Michele he plans to be in her life every Monday and Thursday. He’s signed up for her philosophy class.
The film ends much as it began. Michele is in the house once shared by Will and Chris as Will leaves. But this time the promise of them seeing each other again seems inevitable.
Post-game Analysis
Director Acevedo has employed some of the plot structures seen in classic movies like Brief Encounter (1945) and My Dinner with Andre (1981).
In Brief Encounter a chance meeting between two total married strangers in a British railroad station leads to a short but memorable love affair. Brief Encounter starring Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson has often been described as the most romantic movie ever made.
Love and Baseball also begins with a chance meeting between two strangers, Will and Michele. There are indeed only three brief encounters between the two main characters that in real movie screen time amounts to about 90 minutes. And like Brief Encounter, there are no passionate sexual scenes in Love and Baseball. The romance between Will and Michele is conveyed through intelligent dialog between two smart adults, emotive facial expressions and telltale body language.
The 40-minute scene in Game 1 has My Dinner with Andre written all over it which is a brilliant film where two middle-aged guys sit in a restaurant and just talk throughout the entire dinner. Acevedo puts two young attractive people together in a house for 40-minutes of well-written dialog that goes from introductions, teasing, personal revelations, flirting, courting and finally a mutually recognized romantic connection.
Hanyok’s Michele is playful, bright with a disarming smile that could melt an iceberg. As Will, Arcinega plays it medium cool. He only becomes animated when he reenacts a historic baseball moment.
Acevedo’s Love and Baseball would make a wonderful TV romantic sitcom in the mold of Mad About You, Bridgette Loves Bernie and Dharma & Greg. What fun it would be sharing weekly brief encounters with Will and Michele.
Love and Baseball is currently streaming on HBO Max.