No. 45: The Natural
At least third base
December 07, 2011
1984, dir. Barry Levinson. Sure, they changed Bernard Malamud’s ambiguous ending to a sweet and simple home run. And yeah, a lot of what is intricately layered about the book turns to gushy sentimentality in the movie. But it’s about baseball, and Robert Redford couldn’t be more perfect as Roy Hobbs. God bless America.
Liel Leibovitz is editor-at-large for Tablet Magazine and a host of its weekly culture podcast Unorthodox and daily Talmud podcast Take One. He is the editor of Zionism: The Tablet Guide.