Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Boba_Fett1138 Believe it or not, this story is partly based (and I think very loosely) on the real, early, life of actress Elisabeth Shue, who grew up playing soccer with boys. She herself also plays a role in this movie. There are actually a whole lot of more of her family members involved with this movie in one way or another, so you can really call this a Shue movie. Nothing wrong with that of course but it makes it just a bit all the more weird that the message at the end of the movie claims that female soccer in America was not accepted and didn't even exists, till there was Gracie, or should I say Lizzy Shue. But I don't hold this against the movie. The movie already has enough problems on its own as it is.It's not a bad movie but I still really had tons of problems with it. First one is really its story. All of the drama and emotions feel very forced in and manipulative but even worse is that it's so incredibly formulaic and predictable. So, it's a movie about a girl who tries to make it to the boys soccer team at school...jeez, you think she will make it or not? But everything else that happens in between is also very predictable. It's really a movie by the numbers, which is not necessarily a bad thing if it got done right. And yes, the movie still does a lot of things right but its story and storytelling really prevent this movie from standing out in any way.One of the things I also really didn't liked about the story was that it never felt realistic in any way. It was crazy how everybody was against Gracie playing soccer and saying silly stuff like 'grils can't play' or 'she is not good or though enough for the game'. But it was even more silly how all of the characters kept on switching back and forth with their opinions. The one moment someone was being really against the idea, while the other he or she is suddenly being very supportive and all for it. But this happens with no apparent reason, which was really annoying to be honest.I must say it also didn't helped the movie very much that the acting in this movie was really below par.The story can perhaps be understand and appreciated better if you understand that this movie was supposed to be set in the '70's, when girls at schools just had less choice on what to do with their lives and what sports to pick. I say this, because it really isn't apparent at all within this movie that it was supposed to be set in the '70's. All you basically see are some old cars but there is very little else to indicate that the story is supposed to be set in the '70's. So bad film-making in that regard, though this can also be put on its low budget of course.But a more positive thing about this movie is the way the soccer matches are being portrayed. What I liked was that it showed the game as the tough and hard game that it can be and you also don't necessarily have to understand the rules of the game to watch this film. It doesn't ever get into any technical details or tactics, which makes this movie accessible to watch for basically everybody.You will perhaps like this movie better if you're a young girl with dreams but to me this movie was just being very average and I think I'm still being very kind to rate this movie still as 'highly' as I do because the more I think about this movie, the less I'm starting to like it.5/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Roland E. Zwick When high school soccer star Johnny Bowen is killed in a car crash, his grieving kid sister vows to keep his memory alive by taking his place on the team. But first Gracie will have to overcome the strenuous objections of both the coach and her own misogynistic father to her plan.Although it has many of the hallmarks of a Lifetime Original Movie - souped-up gender conflict, an overdose of sentimental uplift, and a plucky, inspirational heroine at its core - "Gracie," which is set in late 1970's New Jersey, transcends many of its stereotypes and clichés through heartfelt performances, unpretentious writing and earnest direction.Carly Schroeder has grit and charm to spare as the indomitable Gracie, while Dermot Mulroney and Elizabeth Shue acquit themselves nicely as her ultimately supportive parents.It's true that "Gracie" provides us with nothing we haven't seen a thousand times before - from "The Karate Kid" to "Bend it Like Beckham" - but inspirational-sports-movie fans should still find themselves cheering on this latest underdog story.

TxMike This nice, small movie is a product of the Shue family of soccer fame. Siblings Andrew and Elizabeth Shue are among the producers, husband of Elizabeth is the director, and the screenplay is based on Andrew's story. In fact, the whole story is loosely based on their own family as the Shue kids grew up. Carly Schroeder is Grace Bowen (Elizabeth Shue character), only daughter, of Bryan Bowen (Dermot Mulroney). Her brother is the local high school soccer star but, after barely losing to their rivals, he gets killed in a car wreck. Dad is devastated, but sister Gracie wants to play soccer. There is no girls' soccer at their school, so she has to use a title 9 approach and petition the school board to let her even try out. Elizabeth Shue plays the mother, Lindsay Bowen. Andrew Shue plays a soccer coach.This isn't a great movie, but it is a very nice one. I especially enjoy movies based on real events, like this one was. SPOILERS: Gracie in try-outs made a good impression but was not fast enough or tough enough for varsity, and was put on the JV team. However, when the rivals came to town, coach asked her to sit on the bench as moral support, wearing her dead brother's old jersey. Coach had seen her practicing free kicks late at night, and put her in with the game on the line in OT. Her free kick just missed the mark, but she stayed in, and eventually used a move her dad had showed her to score and win the game.

Chris Knipp 'Gracie' is a movie about a girl who gets on the varsity boys soccer team after her brother, Johnny Bowen (Jesse Lee Soffer) who was the team star, dies in a car accident. Based on an experience of the Shue family, it has Elizabeth Shue playing Gracie's mother and another Shue, Andrew, as Coach Clark. Gracie Bowen is played by Carly Schroeder, who projects energy and guts, as the role requires. Dermot Mulroney is her father, Bryan Bowen, a former soccer player and a bit of a star in his time himself, but with childhood issues that give him some trouble as a parent. He has coached the family boys as if soccer, for all of them, has always been the only thing, while Gracie was protected but overlooked. But the fact that she nails a shot, on a bet, with bare feet in the opening sequence shows she's got the potential to be a star herself. Her struggle to be accepted at a time when girls didn't play soccer in America (this takes place in the late Seventies) is a way of moving forward when a kind of opening appears; it's also a chance for the family to redeem itself and progressing beyond its grief.'Gracie's' final trajectory leads (somewhat implausibly) to a predictable final big game triumph; but what makes the body of the movie different and good is its focus on training--the training, moreover, of a female athlete, and her endless struggle to prove herself. The story is more about the discipline of sport, the long hard process of conditioning, than the drama of games and wins. Gracie first has to convince her father to coach her despite his not unnatural concern that she isn't tough enough to play against boys. Her mother tells her she must be content as a girl with being second best. She doesn't buy that. Carly Schroeder makes Gracie's passion and conviction appear strong but never forced. Despite the ending this is, for once, a sports film not so much about the dramatic play and the roar of the crowd as it is about practice, practice, practice. The training is as close up as we got in Robert Towne's excellent 1982 'Personal Best,' which starred Mariel Hemingway and was a landmark for its realistic cinematic treatment of a track and field competitor. Again, maybe inevitably, the lesbian issue comes up in 'Gracie' as it does more prominently in 'Personal Best.' This time it appears only as a false stereotype, but at one point even Gracie's very up-front best friend Jena (Julia Garro) has doubts, while her sometime boyfriend, Kyle Rhodes (Christopher Shand), who wanted her for a long time but seemed hard to trust, indeed becomes an enemy at tryout time.The movie's lessons have to do with a family unsure of itself accepting layers of grief, but the fresh image is of a young girl who can be a tough and skillful athlete no matter what anybody thinks. Gracie may get some of its depth and particularity from the involvement of the Shue family. It's a family affair in more ways than one. Director Guggenheim is Elizabeth Shue's husband, and Carly Schroeder's brother plays Gracie's younger brother Mike. The summer's American family films are rarely as unpretentious but solid as this one.