For those that felt like they were sort of watching two movies in one or had to sit through some very poor, or even nonexistent story, background, or character development to know what was really going on here, the answer is sort of hidden in very plain sight (Once you strip away, all that).
The way the movie tells it in the first act,, Chance is being presented as nothing more than your quintessential, small-town "special kid". Basically, as long as he can remember, he was a kid who had a lot of known issues and was presumably doted over by his mother. ("screamed himself blue"? Really?). He is singled out by Coach Mike, who, for whatever reason, just sees something special in him, and in his eyes, Chance can just do no wrong. His baseball profession Sloan seems to propel him to superstar status, without really having to earn it much any other way.
The second movie within this movie, fast forwards to his high school years, where baseball is pretty much in his past now. As foreshadowed in the last scene of act, one, when the season is over, Chance vocally cries out, like he might not have anything else going for him and knows it. Desperate to maintain the level of attention, to which he has grown accustomed, he falls in with the wrong crowd and into much mischief that, somehow, he still manages to get away with. The only major scene in the movie where his father makes an appearance, the car windshield scene, says it all about this.
As far as the bullying incidents go... we don't really know how much, if any, Chance was involved in or not. We do know that he saw Colton as a threat, again, because Chance is not used to competing for attention. As far as the other texting and cyber bullying goes, along with the poking in the shoulder scene, where we don't actually see who did it, there may be reasons for this. The movie, whether intended or not, probably was trying to make the point of parental and adult ignorance toward bullying, and how far removed the adult community really is about it. I guess if they had copped to knowing who had actually done it, it may have lent this premise a lot less credibility.
Regardless of culpability, the way things ended, for Chance was simply because he was in over his head. He never had to actually earn the attention he got, and also never really actually had to tell the truth to anyone. (Science says this is how many pathological liars are actually made.) it was probably his first ever Social Waterloo, and he just couldn't cope.
The movie probably also made another good point, whether intended or not, at the very end when Coach Mike actually singles out yet another "special" player. To me, this basically meant that we just wash, rinse, and repeat cycle, and keep doing the same things over with regard to dealing with teen problems today; we keep hitting our head with a hammer, hoping that it will stop hurting eventually. Like at the memorial service when Coach Mike made "why?" The basic theme; it seems like we're always bent on asking "why", but really don't seem too eager to really find out. So we just keep on doing the same things over and over.
Overall, the movie probably did tell a story about what happens when an overly privileged and celebrated youngster eventually have to pay the piper and stand on his own 2 feet, and what society just doesn't know about the depth of things like cyber bullying, as well as how often we turn a blind eye to general team mischief (be at online or off-line). It's just too bad this movie had to go about it with such a general lack of story, background, or character development. Plus, with the way the movie was promoted and positioned, The jury is still out on whether or not those were points that it was really supposed to make in the first place or not.
The way the movie tells it in the first act,, Chance is being presented as nothing more than your quintessential, small-town "special kid". Basically, as long as he can remember, he was a kid who had a lot of known issues and was presumably doted over by his mother. ("screamed himself blue"? Really?). He is singled out by Coach Mike, who, for whatever reason, just sees something special in him, and in his eyes, Chance can just do no wrong. His baseball profession Sloan seems to propel him to superstar status, without really having to earn it much any other way.
The second movie within this movie, fast forwards to his high school years, where baseball is pretty much in his past now. As foreshadowed in the last scene of act, one, when the season is over, Chance vocally cries out, like he might not have anything else going for him and knows it. Desperate to maintain the level of attention, to which he has grown accustomed, he falls in with the wrong crowd and into much mischief that, somehow, he still manages to get away with. The only major scene in the movie where his father makes an appearance, the car windshield scene, says it all about this.
As far as the bullying incidents go... we don't really know how much, if any, Chance was involved in or not. We do know that he saw Colton as a threat, again, because Chance is not used to competing for attention. As far as the other texting and cyber bullying goes, along with the poking in the shoulder scene, where we don't actually see who did it, there may be reasons for this. The movie, whether intended or not, probably was trying to make the point of parental and adult ignorance toward bullying, and how far removed the adult community really is about it. I guess if they had copped to knowing who had actually done it, it may have lent this premise a lot less credibility.
Regardless of culpability, the way things ended, for Chance was simply because he was in over his head. He never had to actually earn the attention he got, and also never really actually had to tell the truth to anyone. (Science says this is how many pathological liars are actually made.) it was probably his first ever Social Waterloo, and he just couldn't cope.
The movie probably also made another good point, whether intended or not, at the very end when Coach Mike actually singles out yet another "special" player. To me, this basically meant that we just wash, rinse, and repeat cycle, and keep doing the same things over with regard to dealing with teen problems today; we keep hitting our head with a hammer, hoping that it will stop hurting eventually. Like at the memorial service when Coach Mike made "why?" The basic theme; it seems like we're always bent on asking "why", but really don't seem too eager to really find out. So we just keep on doing the same things over and over.
Overall, the movie probably did tell a story about what happens when an overly privileged and celebrated youngster eventually have to pay the piper and stand on his own 2 feet, and what society just doesn't know about the depth of things like cyber bullying, as well as how often we turn a blind eye to general team mischief (be at online or off-line). It's just too bad this movie had to go about it with such a general lack of story, background, or character development. Plus, with the way the movie was promoted and positioned, The jury is still out on whether or not those were points that it was really supposed to make in the first place or not.