The Boys in the Boat

[MerBearHou]

We saw this today (our Christmas Day tradition of seeing a movie) and enjoyed it so much.  We had not read the book so we didn’t know the story and how it plays out, but it was well-acted and well-told plus we love rowing and underdog stories.  The theater was packed which made me happy since I don’t think this is a movie with a lot of fanfare.  George Clooney did a great job as director, we thought.  Thoroughly recommend.  

[AngieBee1]

I'm glad that the theater was packed. I love the film and it deserves eyes.

[Shannon L.]

I saw this today and really loved it, too.  I went to the 10:30am showing, so there were only a few of us there, but hopefully, it's getting more love at the later shows.  I also thought the acting and directing was really good.  It's visually beautiful , too.

[meet trouble]

I've been waiting for this movie since I first read the book several years ago. TBH, I have read the book far too frequently to be unbiased, so I'm still working past my quibbles.

Understanding that it's hard to tell such a detailed story in two hours, so cuts must be made, some of them could have been better done. Instead of having our eight young men simply start crew for the '36 season, do some exposition at the beginning (or a statement of some sort with the opening credits), because it would have been such a nice touch at the end to point out that in four years of competitive rowing, Joe, Roger, and Shorty never lost a race.

Also, I strongly disagree with the actress who played Joyce's opinion that all the actors looked "exactly" like their RL counterparts.

That said, they did a good job with it. The scenes on the water were marvelously shot. I was pleased to learn that early screenings were for actual rowers who said that they "got it."

We took my HS-age nephew to see it, and he's been recommending it to all his friends. :)

[StatisticalOutlier]

Maybe it wasn't trying to forge new cinematic pathways, but it seemed really formulaic.  Even if the story itself is formulaic, I don't think a portrayal of it has to be.

As I was watching it, I was thinking, "What about this story in particular made Clooney think, 'I have to make this film'" and couldn't come up with anything.  But when I think back and put it all together, it's a remarkable story.  It somehow didn't seem that way as I was watching, but maybe that's because the swelling music would take foretell the emotion we were fixing to experience--that's what I mean by formulaic.  FWIW, I went in knowing nothing about it except it was based on a true story.

Plus I was distracted by Joe Rantz's hair.  It was so obvious it was dyed/bleached, and assumed it was because the real person had blond hair.  But it just looked wrong, for a poor man during the depression to be coloring his hair.

I also noticed he had pierced ears, and his girlfriend in the movie had two piercings in an ear.  I guess that's the down side of seeing movies on the big screen.

[meet trouble]

On 1/26/2024 at 4:33 PM, StatisticalOutlier said:

Plus I was distracted by Joe Rantz's hair.  It was so obvious it was dyed/bleached, and assumed it was because the real person had blond hair.  But it just looked wrong, for a poor man during the depression to be coloring his hair.

I also noticed he had pierced ears, and his girlfriend in the movie had two piercings in an ear.  I guess that's the down side of seeing movies on the big screen.

Oh, please. I was thinking about how Joe had a crewcut and there would never have been women in the engineering courses. About how McMillan was the tallest man on the team, and Chuck Day's father was a dentist (not broke). Oh, and how Roger wasn't the cigarette smoker on the team (that was Day).

I recently watched the American Experience documentary on that website that is known for videos, The Boys of '36, and highly recommend it.