Metacritic-Rezensionen

The film’s only villain is the passage of time, and its protagonists are simply facing the unpleasant realization that their era is ending sooner than their lifespans.

Its pearls of practical wisdom and jewels of melancholic wit make Eephus a gem, which is fitting, for a movie about a game played on a diamond.

Modest and moving, it’s a new sports-movie classic, as sneakily effective as the pitch which gives it its title.

It dwells in some languid liminal space between hangout movie and elegy, a tribute to the community institutions that hold us together, that introduce us to one another and that, in an age of optimized life choices and disappearing public spaces, are slowly fading away.

With a gentle yet rigorous vision, Eephus coalesces into a reflective study of nostalgia: both for a game that has evolved and for a certain kind of American social life that is dwindling as fast as the sun fades.

Baseball is just a game, but Lund recognises why some need it so badly. On the diamond, these ageing men feel young again – if only for a few hours.

Eephus delivers an experience that lingers, successfully capturing a deeper melancholy that can’t be shaken.

The “Eephus” pitch is an apt characterization for the film that now shares its name, an odd, surprising story about a baseball game with seemingly little to no stakes, that continues on for long after it should’ve already ended.

Carson Lund treats the power of a shared interest with profound, elegiac empathy.

Eephus isn’t exactly a baseball movie — it’s something closer to movie-baseball, where characters endlessly jostle back and forth under no real time constraints, watching the day slowly pass them by, simply out of love for the sport.