Gracie

It's too bad that Gracie's story seems bent on staying on the surface of such familiar turf, rather than digging deeper to reveal what propels her.

Ends up more like a middling after-school special than an insightful look at family dynamics.

[Actress Schroeder] gives Gracie a credibly rugged edge, building her into a mini-tower of blond ambition and almost rescuing the role from cliché. Almost, but not quite, not when burdened with a script so proudly rooted in uplift's trite traditions.

The reason these formulaic films work is they give sports fans what we want: a hard-working underdog we can root for and a sense that the sports we love have some deeper meaning.