Ben Affleck is getting praise for his role in The Way Back, and considering the way things have gone for Affleck over the last five years, it could prove to be one of the most important roles of his career. Fresh out of rehab after his own very public struggle with alcohol following a streak of bad reviews and his Batman departure, Affleck's movie about a down-on-his-luck alcoholic who becomes a high-school basketball coach is exactly the role Affleck, and his career needed.
Like the movie's name, it's a bit of a comeback story for him as well. Affleck has already gone through several personal evolutions. With an early career dominated by cult classic Kevin Smith movies, Affleck hit it big with best friend Matt Damon when the duo won an Academy Award for their Good Will Hunting screenplay. Affleck became the Hollywood leading man everyone loved to hate, which was reflected in his coverage in the tabloids, and he played the part well. But after some high profile flops, most notably Daredevil, Gigli, and Surviving Christmas, he thought his career as he knew it was over.
During a recent interview with Erwin McManus, Afleck said it was after a studio screening for Surviving Christmas where the movie ended and he found everyone hadn't just left the theater, but gotten in their cars and driven away, that he knew it was time for a course change and to finally start directing. A moment in he says he recalled as he accepted his Academy Award for Best Director for Argo 8 years later.
Affleck had (mostly) shaken his old image and was now being taken more seriously after writing, directing, and starring in multiple highly praised projects from Gone Baby Gone and The Town to Argo. He was also highly praised for his role in David Fincher's Gone Girl, but was once again courting high profile controversy after being cast as Batman in Zack Snyder's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Affleck speaks highly of Batman v Superman and Snyder's take on the Batman, which is what convinced him to sign on. While his performance was praised, negative reviews and the subsequent DCEU course correction and behind the scene drama led to a bad experience during Justice League. During that time he was also crafting a screenplay for a solo Batman movie he planned to direct as well as writing and directing Live by Night. As the DCEU troubles continued, Live by Night also flopped.
By the time Justice League was done, Affleck was burned out as Batman and had to return to rehab and didn't have any new releases in 2018, and according to The Wrap, his alcohol issues may have made him a major studio liability. He saw generally positive reception for his role in Netflix's Triple Frontier on Netflix, but, while the movie generally got good reviews, Netflix ruled it a flop and it didn't do much to alter the narrative. While he had walked away from Batman, the uncertain state of the DCEU meant the world wasn't done talking about him as The Dark Knight, especially with the persistent Snyder Cut movement calling for the release of Zack Snyder's Justice League which Affleck understandably strongly supports considering the nature of his exit, but it also meant the focus was exclusively on his past.
That's where The Way Back comes in. Originally titled The Has Been, it underwent a name change to give it a more positive slant, as Affleck himself needed to prove he wasn't a has-been either. The movie hit so close to home, it didn't only result in the most vulnerable and emotional role of his career, even generating some early awards buzz, but its release was also accompanied by a PR blitz. For a few weeks, Affleck was everywhere from the New York Times to Diane Sawyer to ESPN and Jimmy Kimmel and GQ talking about The Way Back, which also meant talking about his own "way back" and was finally able to paint a bright picture of his current health and future outlook.
While people still want to talk about Batman, and that likely won't stop, Affleck now has a number of high-profile projects on the horizon and potentially more to come. Thanks to The Way Back, Affleck has shown he still has a lot to offer, getting people excited about his future projects once more.