Myth, wonder and baseball: because Robert Redford’s The Natural Is Still Movie Magic is even better

With the recent disappearance of Robert RedfordI found myself reviewing my favorite film by the actor and director.

Natural It was a film that pushed my imagination and gave me that large sense of eyes that stories can be bigger than life and feel still true.

Redford left us on September 16, 2025 and revisiting this film now seems to thank you to a narrator who understood how the myth can live within a simple game like baseball.

In history, Roy Hobbs presents himself late to his destiny. Young and gifted, sculpts a bat from a tree divided by lightning and calls it Wonderboy. A terrible deviation makes him fall from the path. The years pass. In the end it arrives in the great championships as an adult man with peaceful eyes and a swing that seems the memory itself.

He joins the New York Knights, a club in difficulty led by the seasoned Pop Fisher manager, played with the gravelly heart Wilford Brimley. In The Dugout Roy meets Red the Trainer, incorporated by Richard Farnsworthwho feels like the soul of the game.

Around them the forces that test a hero. There is Max Misecy, a clear sports writer played Robert Duvallthat hunting stories like a detective. There is an owner of dark team known as the judge, given life from Darren McGavinWhoever likes the game only when he pays.

There is a temptation in the form of a Memo Paris, interpreted by Kim BasingerAnd there is grace in the form of Iris Gaines, played by Glenn CloseThat comes out of the stands like the light of the sun on a cloudy afternoon.

What takes place is a fairy tale about the choice. Roy can chase easy money, or he can honor the game and the people who believe in him. He can hide from his past, or he can quench his shoulders and look at him in the eye.

The film stacked the chances of him. His body betrays him. The club’s policy holds him. The city whispers and, when that swing connects, the ball rises in a night sky that seems to make room for legends.

I think the story works so well because it moves like a story of a classic hero while it remains on the ground by living in detail. Barry Levinson He directs with an eye for ritual and rhythm. The shelters seem like chapels, the Case Clubs feel like parishes flanked by lockers and the action of the game is shot with golden light that transforms the motions of powder into magic.

Then there is the sound of the crack of the Mazza while Hobbs hits a race in the house. The score of Randy Newman Raise that promise and send her floating on the field.

The characters are designed with clean and daring lines. You have pop who believe in the game even when it hurts it. Mercy believes in history even when people hurt. The judge believes in the book Mastro. The reminder is a fantasy that does not ask for anything. Iris is a memory that asks for everything. Roy is the choice.

That’s why the film seems timeless to me. He tells us that greatness is not the gift that is given to you, is the decision that you continue to take when nobody is looking at.

There is also a nice conversation in progress between this film and the novel by Bernard Malamud. The book relies on darkness and irony. The film rests on hope and respect both. The film chooses to be a popular story and plays rightly with that choice.

It is not naive. He knows the greed, rot and regret. He only believes that a person can still do the right thing and that it is important. In a culture that often treats cynicism as wisdom, that belief strikes me in my chest.

People sometimes tell me that you have to love baseball to love NaturalBut I don’t think it’s true. You just have to remember the feeling of wanting to be the best version of yourself when a moment finally arrives.

The film envelops that feeling in a shirt and a packet per lightning, so she asks you to cheer for a second chance. When Roy enters the box and the camera lingers on his eyes, I feel the silence that I felt like a child when the world seemed to hold back my breath for me too. Not because I was special, but because I hoped I could be courageous.

At the level of craftsmanship, the film is a master class in the visual narrative. Levinson uses repetition as a refrain. Iris in white. The Lightning Insignia on Wonderboy. The way the lights of the stadium look at each other, almost like the constellations bend closer to the clock.

The final image has become pop mythology, but gains this status due to all the small human rhythms that precede it. A nod of pop. A look of Iris. A quiet moment from Roy before the field. It is not a show for himself. It is the emotional payoff of a story that has been honest about pain and now, only for a heartbeat, let Triumph Ring.

You should revisit this film because Redford offers a quality in Roy so the films do not always make room. Play a man who brings regret without wearing it like a costume. Listen, smile with humility and choose. Looking at him, I feel invited in the myth rather than talking to it. That feeling is rare. It is also the reason why the film still seems fresh.

If you are trying to watch this movie for the first time, let it be at night with the lights and the volume. When the New York baseball field explodes in sparks, do not pursue the metaphor, feel it and let it sink into your soul.

I love that scene! Roy intervenes with Wonderboy, every wound and choice of his life brought at that moment. The field arrives in the bat connects with the ball and increases the lights.

The glass explodes in a storm of sparks that rain on the field while Newman’s theme rises like a wave of tide. Every time I look at it I feel like a bike in the chest that starts like a breath and turns into awe.

This scene is the story that pays every little decision. The lights not only explode, it does so, it does so. For a few seconds the world lights up and believe that a second possibility can illuminate the sky.

So when the credits rolled, sit down a minute with the quiet. Ask yourself how your Wonderboy appears. Ask yourself if the person who believes in you has a place saved in the stands.

I love this film because it tells me that bankruptcy can delay you but must not define you. He tells me that Grace can arrive late and still be right. He tells me that heroes are not perfect. They are simply people who stop running. As a child, that idea fired on my imagination. As an adult, it helps me to go on.

So here’s my little greeting. In Redford, whose eyes said more than most scripts. To the teammates and the sheets that made Roy Hobbs heard. To a film that lights up with the warmth of the summer and the pain in memory.

Natural The fences still oscillates, it is still connected and for me I still illuminate my imagination and my wonder.