Gracie

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

There's a reason the underdog sports formula is followed over and over: When it's executed as skillfully as it is here, the damned thing works every time.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

A familiar but rewarding little parable.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Guggenheim doesn't bring much visual style to the game. But he brings heart (and some Bruce Springsteen on the soundtrack) to the story of a lost Jersey girl redeemed by sport. Yeah, I cried. And cheered. You will too.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

An inspirational sports movie, soccer subdivision, and it stops at every expected station of the cross on its road to the triumphant against-all-odds finale (in sudden-death overtime, yet). Yet it also feels appealingly handmade in a way most jock dramas don't.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

For all its faults, Gracie is made with enough grace to get us rooting for the protagonist.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Dermot Mulroney takes the largest male role, that of the driven ex-soccer star and patriarch of the onscreen family. From certain angles he looks like a Shue too.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The New Jersey locations and soundtrack help ground the story in a particular time and place, and Schroeder delivers a terrific performance.

Los Angeles Times Lael Loewenstein

An earnest, well-acted, poignant drama that nevertheless runs afoul of sports movie clichés.

The New York Times Jeannette Catsoulis

A familiar underdog story told with unusual sensitivity.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Directed by Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth"), the movie is heavy on hokum but easy to like, thanks to the spunky Schroeder.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

A gentle, easygoing picture -- it's not exactly dramatically gripping, but somehow, its spirit carries it through.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Guggenheim managed to turn a Power Point presentation into a crowd-pleasing Academy Award winner, but he can't do much to free Gracie from its constraints and clichés.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Falls into the category of heart-warming sports yarns, and, if television still made movies-of-the-week, it would enjoy a rightful home.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Gracie is ably played by Carly Schroeder, and the tale of her uphill battle to play competitive soccer is based on the youthful activism of actress Elisabeth Shue. Shue was the first person in her New Jersey community to break down the hurdles erected to keep girls from the sport.

The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden

For all the personal ties to the material, the film too often reaches for broad-strokes inspiration in a way that feels generic.

Village Voice Michelle Orange

Firing on all formulaic cylinders, Gracie is heavy with tidy meaning and mealy morality; the most dubious idea here is that if you don't let a girl play soccer, she just may turn to cigarettes, halter tops, and sex with the starting forward

Variety Joe Leydon

Modestly engaging but thoroughly predictable.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

You miss the knockabout edge of "Bend It Like Beckham" -- though the ending, in its Pavlovian sports-flick way, pumps you up.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

The genuine sense of loss and nicely observed family details don't stand a chance against the generic buildup to the big game.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

A nicely confident Schroeder strides though the movie as if it's a masterpiece, and Mulroney is equally charismatic. But they can't quite save Gracie from feeling like a vanity project that will appeal mostly to middle-school soccer teams, and various extended members of the Shue family.

Portland Oregonian Stephen Whitty

The script is simply shameless, taking some of the details of the Shues' lives and then slathering them with a thick layer of Hollywood frosting.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Gracie is painfully earnest, which might be OK were it not also painfully trite, painfully cliched and painfully formulaic.

Austin Chronicle Toddy Burton

There's a lot of angry prejudice toward women playing soccer in the film, and a semi-fun "Footloose"-esque scene in which Gracie petitions the school board for the freedom to play. But melodrama reigns supreme as the film disintegrates into movie-of-the-week predictability.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Considering that Gracie says nothing that hasn't been said in dozens of films, one does wonder whether Hollywood is being as diligent as it could be in digging up fresh story ideas.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub

Sporadic on-field violence is only a tiny reason that Gracie disappoints, but it's indicative of the film's greater problem. Producers Elisabeth and Andrew Shue seem so intent on creating a hero out of the main character and villains out of almost everyone else, that they've completely distorted reality.