The Hill | 2023 | PG | – 1.3.4

Why is “The Hill” rated PG? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “thematic content, language, and smoking throughout.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a brief kiss, several scenes of a teen boy and a young man dealing with pain and physical limitations while playing baseball, an inebriated man starting a fight, smoking and chewing tobacco, many arguments and bullying, and some strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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Based on a true story spanning from 1964 to1973: A young boy (Jesse Berry) that needs full-leg braces, feels called by God to play baseball and he shows remarkable skill, but his authoritarian father (Dennis Quaid) blocks his dreams. Determined to play, the boy as a teenager (Colin Ford) endures bullying, pain, and multiple surgeries to achieve his goals. Also with Joelle Carter, Bonnie Bedelia, Randy Houser and Scott Glenn. Directed by Jeff Calentano. [Running Time: 2:06]

The Hill SEX/NUDITY 1

 – A nine-year-old girl calls a male classmate her boyfriend several times; and as seniors in high school, they briefly kiss once. During the end credits, a photo shows a man and a woman being married.

The Hill VIOLENCE/GORE 3

 – A drunk man starts a fight with another man and they shove each other and throw missed punches; the drunk man falls face down and the other man picks him up and takes him home, where we see his wife with a dark bruise covering part of her eye and the man tells the woman that the sheriff should be arriving soon (we do not see this).
► A man asks another man in his congregation to stop smoking and a woman to stop spitting tobacco juice on the floor causing the smoking man to become belligerent and shout; the next day, the congregation stands outside the church and fires the man in front of his family as the man’s wife shouts at the members and tells them they are not being Christian. A man leaves a town with his family and their belongings strapped to the roof of their old station wagon; they run out of gas, a tire goes flat (they have no spare) and they get drenched in a lightning storm before a man and a woman drive up and take them home with them.
► A young man standing on a bridge shouts in pain and grabs his back, saying he wore out his back playing baseball. A young man trips over a sprinkler in a ball field and breaks an ankle in several places and we see X-rays showing multiple fractures as the doctor says that he has ripped tendons and will need seven surgeries; we see the young man in a hospital bed with his foot in a sling and bandaged and he later uses crutches. A boy wearing leg braces partially breaks them so that he can bend his knees; the scene shows the boy at home where he walks across the floor for his father, without braces. A young man plays baseball at major league tryout games and makes 10 home runs, but a league pitcher hits him in the rib cage with a fastball on purpose; the young man shouts in pain and collapses, gets up, argues with a recruiter, and picks his bat up again to make another home run, and people cheer. A teen boy looks at a pamphlet with drawn pictures of the anatomy of the legs, especially the feet and ankles.
► A nine-year-old boy wears leg braces from the ankle to the top of the thigh, causing his knees to be locked when he walks; he also has a degenerative spinal condition. During a pick-up baseball game with young people, a teenage boy bullies a younger boy wearing leg braces, mocks him, and calls him demeaning names several times as other boys laugh and he knocks the boy wearing braces to the ground with a pitch, but another boy helps the younger boy up and he then hits a home run causing the teen boy to curse.
► A woman takes her husband’s breakfast and throws the plate to the floor, shattering the plate and scattering eggs; they go outside and argue extensively as the scene ends. A young boy argues with his father on several occasions. A teen boy argues with his father several times, with other teen boys, and with each of two old men. An elderly woman scowls out a window at three children who scream in fear and run away. A teen boy throws his baseball bat and ball glove out of the frame, gets into his car, beats the steering wheel with his fists, and drives off fast after squealing the tires in a couple of scenes. A man tearfully preaches in church about how he has been arrogant and selfish and has been blocking God’s plan for his baseball-playing son.
► A husband, his wife, three children, and a grandmother sit at a table in dim light and we see that their dinner is a piece of cornbread and half a glass of milk each; the grandmother shouts at the man “… for starving his family, especially the children”; one of the man’s sons wearing leg braces leaves the table, and the mother also leaves, angrily. A man berates his two young sons insisting that they read nothing but Bible verses. A man yells at his two sons about not reading the Bible and takes one of them “out back” for physical punishment and the boy cries; once outside, the man does not hit the boy, but sends him back inside. End credit captions state that a teen boy made it to the major leagues with the Montreal Expos for four years before his spinal condition worsened and left him unable to play; he went on to coach Little League and instruct golf.
► An elderly woman lies on her deathbed as a teen boy becomes tearful; we see a graveside service where a pastor gives a eulogy. A teen boy spits white spittle on the ground and in another scene a man spits white spittle onto the ground.

The Hill LANGUAGE 4

 – 4 scatological terms (1 not fully enunciated), 6 anatomical terms, 9 mild obscenities, name-calling (Robot Boy, jelly legs, white trash, cripple-boy, cripple-kid, cripple, pathetic cripple, blowhard, crazy, old crow, liar, dump, holier-than-thou, heathen, dumb, ladies, dorks, Satan’s saloon), exclamations (screw it, dang it, gracious, oh my gosh, spit, I mean shoot, whoa), 60+ religious exclamations (e.g. the Holy Spirit sees all and punishes, God, oh my God, God bless you, God has a plan for you, it was not His plan, etc.). | profanity glossary |

The Hill SUBSTANCE USE

 – An inebriated man smoking a cigarette outside a store chugs from a fifth of clear liquor before staggering and stumbling toward another man and starting a fight (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details), and a man’s daughter says her father drinks a lot and treats her badly. A woman in a church service spits brown tobacco juice into a coffee can several times (we see juice on the floor), men smoke cigarettes during church services in several scenes and tap ashes and stamp out butts on the floor, a church floor is shown covered with cigarette butts, a man lights up a cigarette and smokes it at a dinner table, and a woman smokes in a diner.

The Hill DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – 1960s rural Texas, the Bible Belt, Christianity, life of a pastor’s family, poverty, malnutrition, lack of medical care, major surgeries, authoritarianism, arrogance, selfishness, domestic violence, bullying, sacrifice, coping with disabilities, hope, dreams, resilience, determination, confidence, speaking truth to power, miracles, finding success, making a second career after physical collapse.

The Hill MESSAGE

 – God can call even pastors’ children to careers other than those directly in the church.