Half way through the film. It can be rented on Netflicks.
We see the world through the eyes of Joe Rantz. The scenes of Hooverville are telling in the days before Roosevelt. So far the film feels like the shortened version of a Reader’s Digest condensed book.
So much is left out. If you like this story, by all means read the book.
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Get rid of the present one.
Although we missed the movie during its run in a town an hour away, it came to our own podunk town for a short run. We grabbed the chance to see it yesterday, along with a whopping 4 other people in the theater.
The Boys in the Boat was tightly edited, didn’t get sucked into the weeds with gratuitous romantic tangents, and made me want to watch a rowing regatta in person again. I thought it stayed pretty true to the book despite needing to keep the movie from being too long.
The substantive difference between book and movie, IMO, is that the movie focused on one main story—the crew’s path to winning the gold medal. In contrast, the book was two major stories closely twined together: the rowing story and the story of the volatile world political context.
The movie could succeed based only on the rowing story because America laps up feel-good stories, especially true ones of strugglers rewarded for their hard work. I’m not knocking it, just saying that when you read the book, you are simultaneously applauding the rowing story while being aghast at how pervasive, dangerous, and intense the Nazi propaganda was. IOW, the book makes for a better reminder of reality.
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I thought the movie was very good.
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I always hear Paul Simon singing my song,
“Maybe I think too much for my own good
Some people say so
Other people say, “No no
That fact is
You don’t think as much as you could”
enjoyed the movie, but it was basically the cartoon version of the book… dramatically simplified.