alobear | Legend of Bagger Vance

As anyone who reads this blog regularly will know, I wasn't overly keen on the book of Bagger Vance.

Still, the film had been highly recommended, and the company was convivial, so I embarked on the film last night - and was very pleasantly surprised.

The wibbly philosophy was toned down to acceptable levels, the visual aspect of the golf worked a lot better than the text description, and Will Smith as Bagger Vance himself was awesome.

I also wasn't expecting the film to be funny, but it really was - generally when Will Smith was on screen. His performance was very subtle and incredibly effective, often only requiring a slight change in expression to portray huge swathes of character. Very impressive.

Matt Damon was pretty good, too, and Robert Redford's direction of quite a layered story showed consummate skill. It took a while to get going, and was never exactly action-packed, but overall it was a wonderfully nuanced drama that captured the essence of the book while masterfully dispensing with the tedious detail.