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How does one cope with entering their own seventh-inning stretch in life — AKA middle age? According to cinematographer Carson Lund‘s directorial debut “Eephus,” it’s best to leave it all on the baseball field.
“Eephus,” which debuted in the 2024 Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, centers on a final game at a small Massachusetts baseball field before its demolition in the 1990s. The recreational league of players cling to their passions and friendships, despite the impending end of an era.
Legendary documentarian Frederick Wiseman plays a radio announcer in the film, and real-life Boston Red Sox pitcher Bill “Spaceman” Lee has a cameo. “Uncut Gems” actors Keith William Richards and Wayne Diamond star, as well as Cliff Blake, Ray Hryb, Stephen Radochia, David Pridemore, Pete Minkarah, and David Torres Jr. Lund cowrote the script with Michael Basta and Nate Fisher.
Lund shared in a press statement that he crafted “Eephus” in the “great cinematic tradition of ‘hangout’ films that celebrate the humanistic and experiential dimensions of the sport of baseball rather than the minutiae of the game itself.” He cited features like Robert Altman’s “A Prairie Home Companion” and Howard Hawks’s “Hatari!” as tonal influences.
In addition to writing and directing “Eephus,” Lund also recently served as the director of photography on “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point,” Tyler Taormina’s Christmas drama that debuted at Cannes as well. Taormina also produces “Eephus,” along with Lund, Basta, and David Entin.
Both projects were produced through Omnes Films, a Los Angeles-based filmmaking collective that describes itself as committed to making “passionate, ambitious works made by friends that favor atmosphere over plot and study the many forms of cultural decay in the 21st century.”
The film was a Critic’s Pick at IndieWire, with the review citing how the feature unfolds with the “rhythm of a baseball game” itself.
“Exposition comes out in brief two-sentence exchanges between pitches and longer asides between innings, allowing audiences to experience the game with the same cadence that the players do,” the review reads. “Almost too big to even be considered an ensemble film, ‘Eephus’ plays out like a vast tableau of the way this recreational league has shaped multiple generations of men. Lund introduces us to two dozen players of varying ages and ethnicities spread across the two teams, but none of the individual characters are particularly memorable on their own terms. That’s not an indictment of anyone’s writing or acting, but a reality necessitated by the film’s larger point: These men are only showing us the parts of themselves that they bring to the field, and years of playing baseball together has shaped their little platoon into a coherent social organism with its own language, jokes, and rules of both the spoken and unspoken varieties. […] That’s why the loss of this specific baseball league on this specific field feels so profoundly tragic to everyone. More than just giving up a favorite hobby, each man is saying goodbye to a version of himself that only exists in one context.”
“Eephus” will premiere at Film at Lincoln Center and the IFC Center in New York on March 7 and limited Los Angeles theaters on March 14, with a national rollout to follow from Music Box. Check out the trailer below.
English (US) ·