REVIEW: The Boys in the Boat

Saw The Boys in the Boat in the movie theater this past week. I read the book last year (by Daniel James Brown) and learned afterwards that George Clooney was directing the movie adaptation. So I made a point to see it in a theater. The book and film tell the inspiring story of the underdog junior varsity 8-man crew team from the University of Washington that came out of nowhere to win the West Coast regional college championship and then the national championship regatta on the East Coast (beating national powerhouses like Penn State and the Ivy League schools), earning the right to compete in the 1936 Olympics—the games held in Berlin that Hitler used as a propaganda showcase.

Like the book, the film is primarily told from the point of view of real-life rower Joe Rantz. A true product of the Depression, he was abandoned by his family when he was around 14 and forced to fend for himself. Many of his fellow rowers faced similar tough challenges, in contrast to those programs with athletes from more affluent families and better funded programs and schools. Rantz’s personal story is incredibly harrowing and amazing, making the success he found as a rower and later in life all the more inspiring.

While the film doesn’t follow the details of the story closely, it certainly does in spirit, through scenes that touch on or hint at the backstories. The book provides fuller portrayals of the other individuals who took part in these events, including the other rowers and the coaches, but they nevertheless are touched upon here and the actors (particularly Joel Edgerton and James Wold as the coaches) do great jobs bringing them to life. As I watched the film, I actually thought the full story might have worked better as a limited streaming series. The film also makes great hay in the climactic final race as the underdog American rowers face off against the competing teams from other countries, including the favored Germans, egged on by chants of "Deutschland! Deutschland!" (And, yes, the Fuhrer attends the race.)

As an aside, a few years back, I read Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand, about the harrowing story of World War II POW survivor Louis Zamperini (Angelina Jolie directed the film adaptation, but I’ve never seen it). For me, the two books are complementary—like Rantz, Zamperini also competed at the 1936 Olympics, in track and field, where Zamperini had quite the personal experience (he was nearly arrested trying to steal a Nazi flag on display lol). Presumably because of this, Zamperini is briefly mentioned in The Boys in the Boat book as one of the passengers aboard the ship carrying the U.S. Olympics Team to Europe. So I wondered whether, as a nod, he might have a cameo in the film—he doesn't, but the ‘36 Olympics breakout star, Jesse Owens, is acknowledged, as he is in both books. Owens even has a line in the film when the crew team encounters him during the Games' opening ceremony.

Though I'm a fan of Clooney, I've always found his work as a director to be competent, though not exceptional. But it's hard to miss with such an underdog, inspirational feel-good story that hits the expected notes for these kinds of inspirational sports biopics, so I greatly enjoyed the film, particularly since I had read the book. I also thought it was beautifully shot, which made me glad I saw it on the big screen! I also learned that the lead in the film, Callum Turner, will be appearing in another period piece around the same era, as he’s billed as the co-lead with Austin Butler in the upcoming Masters of the Air mini-series set to stream soon on Apple+, another series under the Band of Brothers mantle.