Moneyball

Moneyball makes a persuasive case for spending a sports film in the office. Bennett Miller is interested in the people who decide what a player is worth, and how hard they find it to admit that their methods might be wrong. We recommend it warmly, with a reservation about how readily it favours its reformers. Billy Beane, played by Brad Pitt, wants a financially disadvantaged baseball team to compete by assessing players differently. Jonah Hill plays Peter Brand, the statistical adviser who offers a way to do it.

The pleasure is in watching those two work together. Pitt gives Beane enough charm to make his certainty attractive, while allowing us to see how wearing it could be for anyone employed by him. Hill’s quieter performance keeps their conversations from becoming a contest in clever lines. We laughed at their exchanges because Beane’s confidence and Brand’s caution make the practical business of changing minds so awkward. Neither actor needs to insist on the joke, and Miller gives them room to let it arrive.

Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian’s screenplay makes the numbers comprehensible without requiring an interest in baseball. We can follow what Beane and Brand are proposing, what it threatens and why people resist it. That clarity lets the conversations acquire some of the suspense usually reserved for a match. Christopher Tellefsen’s editing is most effective here, giving the exchanges enough pace to keep their explanations from feeling like a lecture. At 134 minutes, though, the film leaves more time around its central dispute than all of its characters can use.

Wally Pfister’s cinematography makes the people in those management scenes worth studying even while they are listening. Jess Gonchor’s production design makes the front-office setting convincing as a place where people actually work. Neither contribution distracts us from the uncomfortable business being discussed. Mychael Danna’s music gives the drama warmth, although the film is moving enough when it simply attends to Pitt and Hill. Such restraint is welcome in a sports story already offering plenty of encouragement to back the outsiders.

The trouble is that Sorkin and Zaillian make the established thinking too convenient a target. The resistance is broad enough that Beane and Brand do not always seem to be facing opponents capable of answering back. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Art Howe and Chris Pratt’s Scott Hatteberg make welcome impressions, but their performances leave us wanting more room for the people around Beane. The film could afford to let someone else be persuasive for a little longer, without making its central idea difficult to understand.

As an underdog sports drama, it keeps enough familiar pleasures to make its talk-heavy approach welcoming. The affection for baseball remains clear, even while the characters argue for measuring it differently. Pitt makes Beane’s need to prove himself matter, which stops the film becoming smug about the people who have not caught up. We care about what this man has invested in being right, beyond the success of his method.

The film is most persuasive when it lets the conversations take their time. Beane and Brand have to persuade other people to take a professional risk, and Pitt and Hill make that sound difficult even when the screenplay has cleared their way. No prior interest in baseball is required, but a little patience with management will help.