The Miracle Season (dir. Sean McNamara)

There's a viral video making the rounds of late which has a basic premise: take a famous and well documented moment of history, and add incredibly portentous Titanic music to it. The basic idea being that, for instance, a last-minute soccer goal accompanied by Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" is that bit more humorous. It's a juvenile premise, yet one that director Sean McNamara manages to replicate with equally disastrous results in this saccharine and increasingly manipulative tear-jerker, "The Miracle Season" .

Adapted from the book written by their tenacious coach, this treacherously bland sports-drama recounts the true-story of Iowa City West High School girls’ volleyball team, and how they banded together after the tragic death of their star player, Caroline Found (Danika Yarosh) and defend their state championship. Coach Kathy Bresnahan is played by Helen Hunt, who lights a fire under her team after the tragedy, including Caroline's best friend, Kelly (Erin Moriarty), and tries to help them deal with their grief and set their sights for victory in her honor.

It's seems churlish to ridicule a film which is taken such a tragic true-life story, especially in the context of the plot. But despite McNamara's heart being in the right place, this is shamefully formulaic stuff. For one, it's all well and good for sports movies to be predictable, but if you can't see where this picture is going from the start, you're really not looking hard enough. Equally so, it reaches monumental moments of cheesiness not even the most retrograde of Nicholas Spark's movies has achieved; a perfect example being as our heroine drives off on a precariously shaped moped, she turns her head back to her friend and smiles- as if about to fly off to heaven. No guesses what happens next.

When the script isn't dwelling in mawkish twaddle, there are mildly arresting volleyball sequences which make up the rest of the drama. There's some neatly woven camera-work on show here, as the camera weaves and meanders around the court - yet without a stylistic vigor needed to keep these sequences entertaining.

If you're like me, and feel that sports like Volleyball are better when not taken so seriously (i.e. Dodgeball), they're unlikely to wake you from your slumber. Equally so, the aforementioned moments of portentousness are ham-fisted in to get you reaching for the tissues, but are more likely to have you running or the sick bucket.

Every now and then, we will return to Line's father Ernie Found, played by the suitably grump William Hurt. His tragic loss is equally exacerbated by his sudden wife's death two days later, and then ultimately a crisis of faith. No surprises, given the title of this drama, to it's faith-based undercurrent, though whichever side of the theological spectrum you fall on, these pious moments of grandeur are nothing more than a perfunctory addition to proceedings.

Far be it from me to criticize a film which is so clearly not made for my demographic, yet Sean McNamara's "The Miracle Season" is clearly made for it's teenage-girl market- and no-one else. Adults will be bored senseless by the sentimentality and the rest of us sentient humans will be confused by the stereotypical genre tropes and plodding storytelling.

Though it's admirable telling a story on the notion of camaraderie during a difficult time, the only thing miraculous about this teen-drama is that i managed to stay awake during it.

The film finishes off with footage of the real-life characters on screen, and you wonder if it wouldn't have been better for all those involved to commemorate the passing of a beloved member in the community in a less generic fashion.

Rating 1/5.