BULLET REVIEW : THE BOYS IN THE BOAT
The Boys in the Boat, directed by George Clooney, released on Christmas day, succeeds by not overplaying the baked-in dramatic power of the underlying actual extraordinary story. In 1936 the sons of farmers, lumberjacks and fishermen on the University of Washington crew team beat the usual Ivy League winners and then took home the gold from Hitler’s 1936 Berlin Olympics.
The perfectly casted actors, with their 1930’s haircuts and grim faces look like photos of that era come to life. The portrayals of these young men whose youth had been hobbled by the great depression felt real and recognizable as the generation who in just a few short years would cross the Atlantic again to fight WWII.
Callum Turner, with striking good looks, gives a memorable performance as the central character Joe Rantz, for whom getting a seat in that boat meant a place to sleep and something to eat.
With skillful understatement Joel Edgerton, plays coach Al Ulbrickson who stood up to the powers that be and put his career on the line with his bet on the junior varsity boat.
Luke Slattery captures the competitive spark plug leadership of cox Bobby Moch.
The NY Times, opening day review, by critic Amy Nicholson, was memorable for its judgmental unfairness including her gratuitous swipe at this historically accurate script for being as “subtle as a bonk on the nose”.
In a comment that captures why the review is so annoyingly off the mark, Nicholson says that “ [t]he United States eight-man rowing team had won every gold medal since 1920, but the screenwriter Mark L. Smith glides past that fact to emphasize that these particular boys were at a disadvantage.”
This story was not just about the triumph of “disadvantage”. It is a classic depression era, historic saga of kids playing the cards they were dealt at birth, from a deck stacked by power and class, who then clawed their way up and beyond all expectations to a triumphant victory in 1936 Berlin against the forces of evil that defined an era.
The snobby, snarky New York Times review of this film missed the boat.
