Backwards
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Metascore
43 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 13 Critics What's this?

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  • Starring: Glenn Morshower, James Van Der Beek, Margaret Colin, Sarah Megan Thomas
  • Summary: Abigail Brooks has spent her lifetime trying to win an Olympic rowing medal, sacrificing friendship, love, and a "normal life" along the way. When she is named an alternate on the Olympic team she quits in haste. Defeated, Abi moves back home with her widowed, workaholic mother. Tension builds as Abi's mother urges her to "move on" from the rowing life that Abi's father, a coach, introduced her to. Unable to do so, but needing an immediate job, Abi seizes an open crew coach position at her alma mater, Union High. There, the head of athletics is her old boyfriend, Geoff. Abi trains her high school rowers in an obsessive fashion, taking two girls, Hannah and Susan, under her wing. After the girls lose an important regional race, Abi reinvents herself as a coach, and, in the process, learns to have fun again both on the water and off. Backwards is an intimate look at the personal sacrifices and complex choices facing competitive Olympic hopefuls. It is also a film about dreams -- young adults pursuing their dreams... and finding that sometimes a missed opportunity can become an introduction to an entire new life. (DADA Films)… Collapse

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 13
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 13
  3. Negative: 3 out of 13
  1. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Sam Adams
    Sep 19, 2012
    75
    Thomas, credited as writer, producer, and executive producer, is the obvious auteur, orchestrating a star vehicle she lacks the screen presence to anchor.
  2. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    Sep 21, 2012
    50
    Backwards - its title referring to the wisdom that life is lived forward but understood backward - has no forward propulsion.
  3. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    Sep 27, 2012
    50
    A movie whose main virtue was its honesty ultimately lands in a place that feels canned and unsatisfying. But on the way there, Backwards isn't so bad.
  4. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Merry
    Sep 28, 2012
    38
    The biggest problem, then, is the characters who populate the film. For the most part, they're one-dimensional caricatures.

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