
The Boys in the Boat
This is the movie that people are referring to when they say “they don’t make movies like that anymore”. Based on Daniel James Brown’s book, “The Boys in the Boat” tells a true story about the University of Washington rowing team who won a gold medal during the Berlin Summer Olympics in 1936. It might not surprise you because it is conventionally old fashioned but it will satisfy you nonetheless. George Clooney, the director of this film knows how to tell such classic underdog stories and he does so with beautiful visuals matched by heartfelt performances.
Rowing is an extremely cinematic sport, where oars move as one over glass-smooth water and sunrise tints the sky a soft pink. And this story grabs our attention, garners our sympathy quickly with young men coming into their own during the bleakest years of The Depression, holes in their shoes and always hungry – they have known nothing else but want so must know success.
Joe Rantz (Callum Turner) is a teenager whose mother died and father left him. He’s homeless and about to be kicked out of school if he can’t come up with the tuition. There are no jobs anywhere, so the University of Washington’s offer to support any man who makes it onto their crew team financially is appealing. “The most difficult sport in the world,” according to its coach, because most people aren’t built for it: average rowers need twice the lung capacity of other athletes and have to move in “perfect unison” the tightest possible coordination, known as swing with each other down the boat. Al Ulbrickson (Joel Edgerton) insists they’re not separate anymore, they’re eight separate parts of the same organism.
He makes it onto the team. And if you’ve ever seen an underdog sports movie, you know what happens next. There’s a montage that shows how hard they’ll train or how challenging preparation will be, here we get both, because this kind of plot needs all hands on deck. The practices and races themselves are rendered beautifully kaleidoscopic overhead shots that show the balletic precision of oars dipping in and out of water 45 times per minute.
We don’t really learn much about any one teammate there’s shy Donny (Jack Mulhern), who barely speaks but can play “We’re in the Money” on piano which is traditional plotting. So are: painful blisters on palms, falling asleep in class; coxswains who aren’t working out, a coach reminding boys this is for everyone who didn’t believe in them, a girlfriend listening intently to radio broadcast of race.
Joe does have a pretty, vivacious classmate named Joyce (Hadley Robinson), whom he will eventually learn he had at least one childhood crush on; Coach Ulbrickson also has a pretty, vivacious wife named Hazel (Courtney Henggeler). There’s simply not enough room in this movie for female characters to be anything but pretty, vivacious, and supportive at all times. Still.
This story is about the men. The tension in Joe’s relationships comes from the father who left him; when Joe sees him (understanding that his pops has returned to Seattle but made no effort to find him), their quick exchange between people with no vocabulary for feelings or expression of regret or empathy gives us a sense of what it will take for Joe to become both team member and romantic partner he envisions. He also draws on his work with George Pocock (Peter Guinness), the boat-builder/artiste who handcrafts the team’s racing shells (boats = shells). Pocock and Ulbrickson give him another idea of what a man or even a father can be.
It is very conventional but sincere and effective storytelling from Clooney and co-writer Mark L. Smith, with emphasis on the many obstacles faced by these boys, this unlikely success.
To qualify for the Olympics, Ulbrickson jeopardizes his position by taking a much less qualified JV team. They end up competing against athletes from Ivy League universities who come from wealthy families that could afford to put them in a rowing program as toddlers. Eventually they find themselves at the Berlin Games, where Hitler wanted to prove Germany’s superiority. As the Washington crew walks into the stadium, they share a moment with Jesse Owens, who they ask if he is there to show off for everyone. In just one line, Jyuddah Jaymes as Owens adds another level of symbolism to the movie when he responds “To show the people at home” and it’s that kind of storytelling that reminds us we’re better than those who didn’t believe in us.
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