5-10-18
Movie Critique Paper
In the movie Trouble with the Curve, there are many nonverbals that are used. Nonverbal
communication is all aspects of communication other than words themselves. In the movie I
recognized three different nonverbals. The first was kinesics which is one’s body position and
body motion including: eye behavior (oculesics), facial expressions, body movements, and
gestures. For example, more than halfway through the movie Mickey was having breakfast with
her father (Gus) and immediately you could tell something was wrong because based on her
slight frown and eyes to the floor look, she had. The second one I noticed was haptics which is
tactile or touch communication like a hug. For example, when Mickey pulled Flanagan out onto
the dance floor by his hand the first time they hung out. By doing that action, she was saying
let’s go dance. The third is, physical appearance which can in this case be beneficial. At the
beginning of the movie, Flanagan immediately saw Mickey when she had just arrived to the
baseball field in North Carolina because of her looks. She was dressed very well in all black and
in heels. He noticed her right away being that she was very pretty and you never see women
“scouts.” When she was walking to sit over by her father (Gus) his eyes practically followed her
the whole way.
I observed many conflict responses in this movie as well. The three most prominent ones
were neglect, loyalty, and voice. Almost throughout the whole movie, Gus, Mickey’s father,
constantly resorts to the neglect response especially when it comes to his daughter. Mickey
consistently tries to bring up the fact that Gus left her with her aunt and uncle as well as sent her
away to boarding school after her mother died. In the movie, Gus really never has a answer when
Mickey brings it up and usually says, “This is not the time, why are you bringing this up now.”
This shows that Gus is trying to dismiss the problem by having covert behavioral responses to
the conflict that he and his daughter have together. Gus also pushes her away by saying, “You
need to get far away from me, do you think you can do that?” It is passive and can be destructive
to a relationship. The next response to conflict is voice which is an attempt to resolve problems
which is being active about it and is constructive. Mickey is the one that tends to really portray
that conflict response based on the talks she has throughout the movie with her father. Mickey
always seems to bring up their same problem that they have with each other and tries to talk
about it with him but he never wants to. Closer to the end of the movie, Mickey finally gets
through to him and is able to understand why Gus did what he did but still she doesn’t
necessarily agree with what...
