{"id":21494,"date":"2022-04-06T10:48:47","date_gmt":"2022-04-06T14:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/?p=21494"},"modified":"2022-04-06T12:22:05","modified_gmt":"2022-04-06T16:22:05","slug":"film-review-does-kelsey-grammers-high-expectations-movie-meet-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2022\/04\/film-review-does-kelsey-grammers-high-expectations-movie-meet-them.html","title":{"rendered":"Film review: Does Kelsey Grammer&#8217;s &#8220;High Expectations&#8221; movie meet them?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"left\">\n<h3><strong>Here&#8217;s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media &amp; culture: 04\/06\/22<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>Family film drama features the star of<em> Frasier<\/em> and the theme of <em>Everybody Loves Raymond<\/em>.<\/strong> Those are two of my all-time favorite sitcoms. Does combining their elements make for a top-notch movie? My review follows the trailer and synopsis below.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><iframe title=\"High Expectations | April 7 Only\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-GofRHvMFT4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div align=\"left\">\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong> <em>Jack Davis (<strong>Taylor Gray<\/strong>) finds himself adrift after his father, the legendary Coach Davis (<strong>Kelsey Grammer<\/strong>), cuts him from his renowned soccer club, the Carolina Mantis. Estranged from his father, at odds with his brother, Mantis All-Star goalie Sam (<strong>Adam Aalderks<\/strong>), and desperate for purpose, Jack turns to his ex-girlfriend Sophia (<strong>Ally Brooke<\/strong>). Jack is inspired by her tough love and unwavering pursuit to become a recording artist.\u202fHe tackles his depression and takes one last shot at his lifelong dream by trying out for a rival soccer club. Can Jack finally prove that he is worthy of his dad&#8217;s love? Can he forgive and believe in second chances?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>The one-night-only Fathom Event is in theaters tomorrow (4\/7). To find out where it&#8217;s playing near you and for ticket info <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fathomevents.com\/events\/High-Expectations\">click here<\/a>.<\/strong> <em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>IMHO: <\/strong>Though the film&#8217;s trailer perhaps focuses more on Jack&#8217;s relationship with his father and ex-girlfriend (both important aspects of the story), the crux of the film, I think, lies in his rivalry with his brother which, to me, evokes a more dramatic take on the relationship between the male siblings on\u00a0 <em>Everybody Loves Raymond <\/em>who were in a sort of competition for their parents love.\u00a0 Of course, the whole story unfolds against the backdrop of soccer which puts, shall we say?, another spin on it.<\/p>\n<p>Does it work? Mostly. The dialogue and characters are certainly believably written and you do end up caring about the Davis family. They&#8217;re flawed but, essentially, good people. In that sense, they&#8217;re like the characters from both <em>Frasier<\/em> and <em>Raymond<\/em>. There are no villains among them, including the stern-but-loving father (played with compassion by Grammer) who unintentionally put two of this three sons on a course deep competition on that negatively impacted their relationship off the soccer field as well. The performances all hit the right note.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the most interesting casting is <strong>Brianna Scurry<\/strong>\u00a0 as the coach of the competing team Jack signs on with. In real life, she is a retired soccer goalkeeper who wend on to become an assistant coach for the <a title=\"Washington Spirit\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Washington_Spirit\">Washington Spirit<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Briana_Scurry\">Per Wikepedia<\/a>: <em>Scurry was the starting goalkeeper for the United States women&#8217;s national soccer team at the 1995 World Cup (3rd place), 1996 Summer Olympics (gold medal), 1999 World Cup (champions), <a title=\"2003 FIFA Women's World Cup\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/2003_FIFA_Women%27s_World_Cup\">2<\/a>003 World Cup (3rd place), and the 2004 Summer Olympic Games (gold medal). She played in the semi-final and playoff for third place in the 2007 Women&#8217;s World Cup (3rd place). She was a founding member of the <a title=\"Women's United Soccer Association\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Women%27s_United_Soccer_Association\">WUSA<\/a>, playing three seasons as starting goalkeeper for the <a title=\"Atlanta Beat (WUSA)\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Atlanta_Beat_(WUSA)\">Atlanta Beat<\/a> (2001\u20132003). Her career total of 173 international appearances is the second most among female soccer goalkeepers. It is also the fifteenth most of any American female player, and the thirty-second most among all women.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div align=\"left\">\n<p><em>Scurry was elected to the <a title=\"National Soccer Hall of Fame\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/National_Soccer_Hall_of_Fame\">National Soccer Hall of Fame<\/a> on August 3, 2017. She was the first woman goalkeeper and first black woman to be awarded the honor. On June 1, 2018 she married Chryssa Zizos, CEO of Live Wire Strategic Communications, LLC.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>From where I sit, it seems like her life might make some pretty good movie fodder.<\/p>\n<p>Back to this movie though, the story, in my view, does falter a bit near the end with a plot twist that I think is unnecessary and not handled particularly well. Overall the film plays like a pretty<em> <strong>CBS Sunday Night Movie<\/strong><\/em> from the nineties. Which is not a dis. Many of those were pretty good. And, despite my quibble about the plot twist at the ending, overall the film works. It&#8217;s not a great movie but it&#8217;s certainly not a bad one either.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div align=\"left\"><strong><em><span class=\"st\">Encourage one another and build each other up &#8211; <\/span><\/em><span class=\"st\">1 Thessalonians 5:11<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media &amp; culture: 04\/06\/22 Family film drama features the star of Frasier and the theme of Everybody Loves Raymond. Those are two of my all-time favorite sitcoms. Does combining their elements make for a top-notch movie? My review follows the trailer and synopsis below. Synopsis: Jack Davis&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11988,13,24,31,1],"tags":[13343,8116,13018,13048],"class_list":["post-21494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-depression","category-family-matters","category-movies","category-television","category-uncategorized","tag-brianna-scurry","tag-kelsey-grammer","tag-kelsey-grammers-high-expectations","tag-taylor-gray"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Film review: Does Kelsey Grammer&#039;s &quot;High Expectations&quot; movie meet them?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2022\/04\/film-review-does-kelsey-grammers-high-expectations-movie-meet-them.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Film review: Does Kelsey Grammer&#039;s &quot;High Expectations&quot; movie meet them?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here&#8217;s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media &amp; culture: 04\/06\/22 Family film drama features the star of Frasier and the theme of Everybody Loves Raymond. 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My review follows the trailer and synopsis below. Synopsis: Jack Davis&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2022\/04\/film-review-does-kelsey-grammers-high-expectations-movie-meet-them.html","og_site_name":"Faith, Media &amp; Culture","article_published_time":"2022-04-06T14:48:47+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-04-06T16:22:05+00:00","author":"John W. 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Kennedy","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/e5d5ef9caeb6b01bcbf08ca6de6591c2","name":"John W. Kennedy","description":"John W. Kennedy is the founder and Dir. of Development of The Creative Universe Entertainment\u2122, a media consultation and development company focusing on the creation, development and support of high-quality mainstream entertainment that upholds positive timeless values, including trust in God. Current projects include \"Bryant Park\" (an uplifting romantic-comedy) and \"Photo Finish\" (an award-winning sci-fi TV pilot). He has written over 100 children's novels based on episodes of the Cartoon Network series \"Ben 10\", \"Ben 10: Alien Force\", \"Ben 10: Ultimate Alien\", \"Ben 10: Omniverse\" and \"Generator Rex\" among others. He also writes Beliefnet\u2019s \"Faith, Media &amp; Culture\" blog. Previously, he has produced successful news and talk programming for CNN, Fox News, Pax TV and SiriusXM. Specialties: Script Writing, Movie\/TV Novelizations &amp; Adaptations, TV Content Creation and Development, Creative Consultation, Producing and Booking News and Talk shows. He can be reached for writing, producing and consulting services at 516-640-1182.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/author\/jkennedy"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21494"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21533,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21494\/revisions\/21533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}