Few actors could endure the severe peaks and valleys Ben Affleck endured over the past 20+ years. Plagued by strings of high-profile flops and personal issues, Affleck’s resilience and adaptive approach should be studied by other performers in search of career resuscitation.

His latest film, the basketball drama “The Way Back,” reestablishes Affleck as a formidable and sympathetic screen presence. Drawing upon his own struggles with alcoholism, Affleck plays a former high school basketball star plagued by personal trauma who is abruptly asked to coach the underperforming squad of his alma mater.

“The Way Back” follows many of the familiar beats associated with redemptive sports dramas. You’ve seen this alcoholic coach before, as well as the other major characters - a showboat star player in need of humility, the beleaguered-but-well-meaning assistant coach, the quiet kid with untapped leadership potential, disapproving parents, etc.

Director Gavin O’Connor (“Miracle,” Warrior” and the underrated Affleck thriller, “The Accountant” from 2016) handles the standard beats with authenticity and passion, especially when it comes to dramatizing the booze-tinged emotional turmoil occurring within Affleck’s Coach Cunningham. Affleck’s performance is particularly vital to the execution, and the actor expresses pain and loss without resorting to ham-fisted theatrics. Those “Sad Affleck” memes have nothing on this soulful and effective performance.

“The Way Back” does something particularly interesting in its final act. While the movie builds to an obligatory big game, O’Connor and screenwriter Brad Ingelsby suddenly shift focus away from basketball. There’s even a triumphant freeze frame that feels like the standard final shot of a movie like this, followed by another 20 minutes of story. Turns out, winning or losing a basketball game won’t have much influence on a person’s crippling personal demons.

After he won his first Oscar for writing “Good Will Hunting” alongside Matt Damon in 1997, Affleck fumbled through too many misbegotten wannabe blockbusters to count. Even throughout this dark period, Affleck occasionally showed flashes of brilliance as a performer, including notable turns in movies like “Changing Lanes,” “State of Play,” and “Hollywoodland.”

His rise to acclaim in the director’s chair also catapulted his acting career. Some of his best work occurs inside movies in which he directed himself, especially “The Town” and his Best Picture-winning “Argo.” He’s incredibly good in David Fincher’s “Gone Girl,” and his interpretation of a battered, aging Bruce Wayne serves as the high point in the otherwise-woeful DC Comics entries of “Batman vs. Superman” and “Justice League.”

Point being, Affleck the Actor routinely gets dismissed as a mediocre performer despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.

He’s made a point of discussing his own addiction problems on the promotional circuit for “The Way Back,” and those stories definitely shade the parts of his career most of us would rather forget. Performances as good as the one in “The Way Back” will most definitely launch Affleck back to the top once again. He’s done it before, and he’ll do it again.

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Tyler Wilson can be reached at [email protected]. He’s been writing professionally about movies since 2000 and is the co-host of Old Millennials Remember Movies, available everywhere you get podcasts and at

OldMillennialsRemember.com.