Music Box Films debuted the official trailer for Eephus, a sports-comedy-drama film from debuting director Carson Lund. The film starring Keith William Richards, Frederick Wiseman, Cliff Blake, Ray Hryb, and Bill “Spaceman” Lee, tells the story of two amateur baseball teams coming together for one final game before their field is demolished to make way for a new school.
Eeephus world premiered last year at the Director’s Fortnight section of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, followed by its North American debut at the 62nd New York Film Festival and also screened at the 2024 AFI Fest.
Release Date
Directed by Carson Lund, Eephus opens in select US theaters on March 7, 2025.
Synopsis
As an imminent construction project looms over their beloved baseball field, two New England recreational teams play ball for the last time. As day turns to night and innings bleed together, the players chat, laugh, and squabble as they face the uncertainty of a new era. Named for a rare curveball, Carson Lund’s poignant comedy is an ode to sports, community, and the passage of time.
Reviews
Jessica Kiang in a Variety review praised the film, writing, “Lund was DP on Directors’ Fortnight stablemate “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point,” just as that film’s director, Tyler Taormina, appears here as producer. Together they and their Omnes Films shingle are softly spearheading an unassuming new nostalgia movement in American indie cinema, which is unashamedly sentimental without being soppy and deeply, almost surreally sincere in its observation of the arcane rituals that underlie so much of American social life. And here we have maybe the best expression yet of this New Suburban Quiet, even — and maybe especially — for those of us with little prior investment in the sport. Its pearls of practical wisdom and jewels of melancholic wit make “Eephus” a gem, which is fitting, for a movie about a game played on a diamond.”
Christian Zilko in an IndieWire review gave the film a score of A-, writing, “One of the most admirable artistic choices that “Eephus” makes is the decision not to blame anyone for the social decay that it portrays. The field is being destroyed to build a school, not some parking monstrosity or shopping mall owned by an evil corporation. An unbiased observer might even conclude that educating kids is a better use of this land than giving grown men a space to get hammered together. The film’s only villain is the passage of time, and its protagonists are simply facing the unpleasant realization that their era is ending sooner than their lifespans. It’s the fate that awaits most of us in one capacity or another, but nobody wants to think about that. So we play those extra innings in pitch darkness, just to say that we did it.”
Official Trailer
Watch the official trailer for Eephus.