Sunday, April 10, 2011

Pre-Thoughts on the film "Seven Days in Utopia"

I recently shared some thoughts on the book Golf's Sacred Journey: Seven Day at the Links of Utopia by David L. Cook, PhD. I mentioned that this book was being adapted to film. It is currently set for release in August 2011.

As I read the book (a book designed as motivational fiction directed towards male golf enthusiast) I found some parts of the book easy to imagine as a film, while others parts seemed to be less than filmable. And when I say "less than filmable," I say this with the thought in mind that there were some very "talky" scenes that if filmed word for word would end up making this move the golf version of Before Sunrise.

I think the casting of this film seems right, with a cast that takes two of the leads from 2010's film Get Low, Oscar winner Robert Duvall and Lucas Black.

In the film, Robert Duvall plays the old inspiration golf instructor, who owns a small town Texas golf-course.

Lucas Black plays Luke Chisolm, a young golfer who wants to make the pro-tour but allows his emotion to destroy his best golf games.

Golf movies have a unique place in the world of sports films, and so it's hard to say what type of crowd this film might generate (will this attract the Legend of Bagger Vance Crowd or disappoint like Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius).

Another angle to consider is the looming question as to whether this film will carry the spiritually charged Christian message into it's on screen film conversion or will that be down played. If played up it could attract a crowd that is similar to this weekends recent released film Soul Surfer about Bethany Hamilton the Christan surfer with a lot of perseverance who lost her arm to a shark attack and continued to surf.

The character list for the film I'm seeing indicate that this film will probably have more plot than the actual novel, and so I'm curious to see what role is given to Melissa Leo and if it's of any substance as I don't recall a character named Lily in the novel, in fact, everyone is just background to what is the Johnny and Luke story. Will the film be the same or will it add more?

2 comments:

Chris said...

Your article is the first time I’ve heard of this new film, so thanks for bringing to my attention, and will go on my to-see-list ( :
I think my favourite golf movie was Tin Cup, do you have a fav? I thought Bagger Vance was boring, a low point for Robert Redford as a director.

mill pond golf course said...

I've yet to watch that film, I'm sure that I will love it because it's about golf. Thanks.