The Natural

In The Natural (1984) Robert Redford’s usual woodenness works remarkably well. He plays Roy Hobbs, whose only ambition is to be the best baseball player who ever lived. Hobbs is not a complicated person. He has natural athletic talent and seems fated for greatness—we know this because of Hobbs’ own certainty that he will be great, and because of the lightning bolt that splits a tree in half and thereby provides the wood from which Hobbs carves his bat, “Wonderboy.” Failure never seems an option for Hobbs. He is on the verge of a great career. But a beautiful woman invites him to her room, shoots him in the gut with a silver bullet, and throws herself out the window. Hobbs disappears for sixteen years. He begins as a mid-American innocent, talented, handsome, and loved by an equally handsome and innocent young woman. Then sin and corruption seize him.

The point here seems to be that even the greatest natural talent can be corrupted or ruined by temptation—Hobbs at one time or the other is tempted by fame, money, and sex. These temptations lead him astray. He is like all of us in this respect—an Everyman. We all start out in youth eager and idealistic and convinced of our own inevitability. And we all fall victim to temptation, we all fall short, in some way. Like Hobbs, we all want and believe we deserve a Last Chance.

After sixteen years away from the game, Hobbs returns for a last chance with the New York Knights. In a movie such as this, a movie that bends over backwards to associate itself with the Great American Dream of fame and success and glory, when the hero faces impossible odds, the outcome is usually not in doubt. That is certainly the case in this film, though there was a different story in Malamud’s novel.

The Natural is not a great film because of its revolutionary cinematic techniques. It has a fine cast—Redford, Robert Duvall, Wilford Brimley, Kim Basinger, Glenn Close, Richard Farnsworth—but acting hardly makes the film. This movie works to the extent that it does work because of the generic American and human themes that it embodies and that are inscribed on Redford’s handsome but inexpressive all-American face. Baseball itself is a great symbolic and allegorical emblem of the American experience, and the film pays homage and careful attention to the usual details—the tying down of the bases before the game, the quirky idiosyncrasies of the coaches and players, the way Roy Hobbs squares himself at home plate before he turns to face the pitcher, and so on. Innocence corrupted and redeemed is another theme—Hobbs’ struggle to redeem his own disillusionment. At one point Hobbs talks about a mistake he made years ago in the past that he never stops paying for. This is the great question of The Natural—can Roy Hobbs redeem himself? Can he play out his destiny?

The movie sets up an allegorical context of good and evil representing all the sins and temptations Hobbs faces: the newspaper cartoonist (Robert Duvall) who can make or break his career, the bookie who bets that Hobbs can’t throw three straight strikes (Darren McGavin), the baseball team owner (who is either Satan or God or both—it’s not clear—but he presides from a redly glowing office and watches the game through shuttered windows—he bets against his own team and tries to bribe Hobbs not to play in the championship game), the beautiful woman (Basinger) who seduces Hobbs, diverting his attention from the game, because she is paid to do so. Hobbs says he loves baseball. Will he sell it out? Will goodness and virtue prevail? Will he betray his teammates and the coach who gave him a chance? Will the silver bullet that has lain in his gut for sixteen years and eaten away at the lining of his stomach finally bring him down, or will he play in the final game even though he might die from the strain? Will he fail the woman who never abandoned him and who still believes in him? Will the note she passes to him before his last time at bat—a note telling him something he doesn’t know, but that will matter a great deal to him—make the difference? You can see where this is headed.

This is allegory and corn and schmaltz but it works because the film borrows and mines the themes from Malamud’s novel—themes Malamud did not invent but that he borrowed from American literature and culture and experience. They’re seared into us—dreams of redemption and glory and personal heroism—part of how we respond to and understand the world. It’s difficult not to respond to them. You can’t help yourself.

Afterwards, perhaps, you feel cheap and used. You want to smoke a cigarette. You want to take a shower. You want to get up and leave.