“The Way Back” is about a ragtag basketball team at a Catholic high school, and a damaged alcoholic coach (Ben Affleck) who finds a way to force them into being winners, into being better people, even.

Jack Cunningham (Affleck) is a mess. He works construction and spends his nights at a dive bar, where he is a regular. You can feel his thirst the second he gets into his truck after his shifts. When he takes a sip of beer, his eyes close briefly. He needs this. At family gatherings, you can see his sister’s disapproval of him, suggesting a long history. But he’s in the round of alcoholism: drinks, collapses, hangovers, do it all over again. Once upon a time, Jack was the star basketball player at his high school. But something fell apart for him. When he is offered a coaching gig at his old school, he promptly gets wasted. He can’t go back. But he does. And it changes everything for him, and for the students.

A film like this depends on its central character. Just as O’Connor did in “Miracle” and “Warrior,” he keeps his eye very closely on Jack. With a script by O’Connor and Brad Ingelsby, the atmosphere is crucial. The lens flares explode across the screen dramatically (the cinematographer is Eduard Grau), creating a vibe of both nostalgia for better days, but also the squinting headache of a constant hangover. Jack strolls into his old high school, and whips the students into shape, immediately recognizing that one of them, Brandon, (Brandon Wilson) is talented. He attempts to put a fire under the kid, forcing him to own his power. At some point, Jack stops drinking.

The basketball games are filmed with a thrilling sense of reality: the fans seem real, the refs seem real, the kids on the other team seem real. O’Connor and editor David Rosenbloom have made a couple of really smart editing choices: you see Jack coaching the kids at practice, and as he details the plays, there’s a cut to later in the game, showing the kids executing these same moves. The games feel like real games. I must mention here Rob Simonsen’s score, and how well it’s integrated. Some scenes go by without music at all, so when the music comes in, it’s a cue that something is about to happen. It’s a very big score. The film isn’t filled with needle-drops of hit songs.  O’Connor does not shy away from the emotion of his films. Instead, he embraces it.

“The Way Back” is, essentially, a redemption arc. Jack is weighed down with disappointment. Affleck is in a very personal zone here. When he gets angry, there’s something still bottled up in his beet-red face. There’s no catharsis in his rage; it remains poison in his veins. There’s also a thrumming sense of self-pity in him, so accurate if you’ve ever known any addicts. Affleck does not shy away from the character’s unpleasantness. He’s right in it, with the man’s flaws and failures. The script is well-structured. Information is withheld from us until far into the action.

There are some missed opportunities along the way. Jack’s such a heavy drinker that quitting cold turkey should have a marked impact on him. It doesn’t. When he goes off the wagon, you don’t sense how much he has been white-knuckling his abstinence. The tragedy in his past is a bit over-determined as well, but one thing that does work – and doesn’t often in movies like this – is his ex-wife (Janina Gavankar) gets to be complicated too.