Radio - 2003

I liked this movie, I found it very touching and I really enjoyed Ed Harris' acting. Apparently it's a true story because at the end they show the real Radio and the real coach, which makes it even more touching. It's the story of Radio, a retarded guy who wanders around the high-school until coach Jones (Harris) takes an interest in him. At first Radio (Cuba Gooding Jr) is so fearful and shy he doesn't even talk so they call him Radio because he likes radios so much he always has one with him. Coach Jones starts taking Radio to football matches and training, spending a lot of time with him, thus taking time from his own family. Slowly the kids in school as well as the people in town grow fond of him, because Radio is good, simple, friendly. Radio causes trouble too, sometimes, for example at a match when he shouts out loud in his enthusiasm the team strategy, so the ambitious father of the star player (of both football and basketball, apparently) is against him and wants him gone, putting Jones in a difficult position; however, his wife tells him that it's never a mistake to care about someone, and with the support of his wife and daughter he decides to step down from his position of high school coach. He loves football very much, but there are things more important :-)
I liked the scene when the coach tells his daughter about an episode of his past, when he saw another child who needed help but did nothing about it, to explain why he can't do the same thing this time. I liked it because he said it to her. I wouldn't have liked it had he said that to someone else, it would have seemed a cheap trick to gain sympathies. But saying that to her is different, to me it felt like telling his daughter that he's not choosing someone else over her, he's simply doing something that he feels it's right, that he has to do. She had felt sort of put in a corner, as if Radio was more important than her, but now she understands :-)
About the acting, I don't know how to judge Gooding's performance, without knowing the real Radio or anybody like him, but I sure felt involved in the story, and never felt he was 'off-key'. What really gripped me was Harris' acting, he was really good, I liked him very much. He was touching, never overdoing it. His acting was the winning point because he looked like a real man, a tough coach but also a good, caring man.
The movie ends saying that Radio, now in his 50s, is still present at every football match.

It was a good movie, and it's a shock to think that Gooding was actually 35 years old! Watching the movie he never seemed so "old". I'm glad I didn't even recognize him, I learned it was him when I looked it up on IMDB. Once or twice, watching the movie, I thought "but how old is Radio?" because it was not clear to me how to place him..
I also liked Alfre Woodard as the Principal of the school, she was very good too, indeed.
ITA Mi chiamano Radio