Gracie, an inspirational drama from director Davis Guggenheim, takes place in New Jersey in 1978. It focuses on 15-year-old Gracie Bowen, who’s emotionally shattered following the sudden tragic death of her eldest brother Johnny in a horrific car accident.

With the exception of her mother (Elizabeth Shue), Johnny (Jesse Lee Soffer) was the only person Gracie (Carly Schroeder) could relate to. She always trusted him to make her laugh and fix all her problems. Gracie’s father Bryan (Dermot Mulroney) fails to show her affection because he doesn’t relate well to women. Instead of getting to know Gracie, the former soccer star spends all his time trying to turn remaining sons Daniel (Trevor Heins) and Mike (Hunter Schroeder) into soccer greats, which he did with Johnny, who was captain of his high school team.

After attending a banquet where Johnny received a posthumous honor for his contributions to his school’s varsity soccer squad, Gracie decides to try out for his old team. Her goal? To score the winning goal and capture New Jersey's varsity soccer pennant, a feat which eluded Johnny. During breakfast the next morning, Gracie announces her plan to try out for the male varsity soccer team. She asks Bryan to train her as hard as he worked with Johnny. Bryan scoffs at Gracie, absolutely refusing to help her attain such an impossible goal. He tells her she’s too weak to play soccer against boys. He’s convinced they would deliberately hurt her to prevent her from making their team. When Bryan learns Gracie's school doesn’t have a girl’s soccer team, he speaks to the administrators about Gracie playing floor hockey instead. 

Gracie’s toughest challenge lies ahead of her. She must now train hard for the soccer tryouts on her own. She needs to convince the local school board that she’s worthy of trying out for the boys’ soccer team without Bryan or anyone else’s support.

Schroeder, who beat out 2,000 girls for the role of Gracie, is a rare find for a child actress. She appears focused, determined, listens beautifully, and totally dissolves into her character.  Because she never played soccer prior to making the film, she had the enormous task of learning how to play the game on top of her acting duties.

I definitely agree with Elisabeth Shue’s observation that Schroeder is the only person who could play the part of Gracie. She ought to know, for this character is based on Shue and how she dealt with her brother William’s tragic death in an accident while she was a teenager. I also admire Soffer’s strong performance as Johnny. Although initially apprehensive about whether he should mimic the way William spoke, moved and played soccer in home movies, he wisely decided  to put his own spin on the character. And Mulroney is perfectly cast as Bryan. Guggenheim was right in believing this actor could play a broken man with a lot of love to give but cold to Gracie, allowing rage over Johnny’s death to consume him.

Guggenheim flawlessly executes this poignant film, one that should not be overlooked by audiences.

(Released by Sony Pictures and rated “PG-13”for brief sexual content).