Directed By George Clooney

Starring – Joel Edgeton, Callum Turner, Peter Guinness

The Plot – About the 1936 University of Washington rowing team that competed for gold at the Summer Olympics in Berlin. This inspirational true story follows a group of underdogs at the height of the Great Depression as they are thrust into the spotlight and take on elite rivals from around the world.

Rated PG-13 for adult language and smoking

THE BOYS IN THE BOAT | Official Trailer (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

While there are plenty of underdog stories in the overstuffed sports biopic subgenre, very few pertain to the sport of rowing, which after “The Boys in the Boat”, may have solidified itself as the ultimate team sport. This is mostly because of Clooney’s exubberating passion and appreciation for the sport, which he not only effectively illustrates its difficulties in everything from the physicality of training to nerve-shattering tension of the psychological perspective, but also the sport’s underlining financial politics, which in the case of Washington makes them the fish out of water in this typically upper class sport. Clooney’s aim of the lens is nearly perfect throughout, with a variety of angles, far and near, to the action that effortlessly immerses us into the dynamic of the team on board, as well as the stylistic choices of set designs and color grading variation between distinct decades within the story, which utilizes Clooney’s evolving capabilities as a master storyteller. The wise choice was also made by Clooney to cast a group of relative unknowns, at least to this critic, which I feel paid off remarkably in viewing them as legitimate characters, instead of familiar faced actors. The one exception is Edgerton, who once more hands in stellar work as Washington Crew’s head coach, with a fine balance of compassion and cadence that works terrifically as the only responsible adult throughout the film and in the lives of his youthful teammates. In terms of technical components, the film is edited with enough urgency to keep the motions of the storytelling consistently ascending throughout its two hour run time, but also some heavily impactful sequences during the movie’s climax, which finally earned it the kind of suspense it had been searching forcefully for, during its first two acts. While the formula can be easily telegraphed for where the story is headed at any given moment, the uniquely invigorating stylistic flare of the film’s closing sequence feels like the defining moment for the integrity of the film, as well as its impact on its corresponding audience, marrying sight and sound in ways that effortlessly conjured the extent of the long-distance journey that this team traveled together.

NEGATIVES

This film wants so desparately to be that Oscars darling as an inspirationally shameless crowd pleaser, and if twenty years prior, probably could’ve pulled off such a feat, but audiences in 2023 have simply been through too much of the same to allow it to ever stand out from its predecessors. They’ve been through the syrupy saturating score from Alexandre Desplat, who as one of my favorite composers today relentingly disappoints with monotonously flat instrumental and swelling volume levels that bring out the most meandering qualities in his work. They’ve been through the agonizingly annoying dialogue, with inspirational one-liners like “They didn’t row as eight, they rowed as one”, or interaction in exposition that forcefully paints insight into backstories of characters, which in the moment feels unnecessary as anything other than a seed planted for future conflict. Beyond all of this, though, they see through it for the meandering melodrama, which until the movie’s climactic final twenty minutes never feels earned, especially as it hops from one conflict to the next, with as much long-term influence as a fly on the windshield of a speeding automobile. If the first half of this movie maintained focus on one of the many subplots it constantly introduces and unloads to the script, then it could’ve easier fleshed out a stronger element of vulnerability for the characters and their underdog framing device, but instead it seems they find resolution in everything in a matter of minutes, leaving little compelling or focused about the way they’re utilized. The biggest offenders are easily an abandoned father subplot to the protagonist that quite literally goes nowhere, an underwhelming love angle with no chemistry or personality to sell it, and an abandonment of the aforementioned team angle, which I feel is the film’s greatest misjustice. I say this because it not only flatly illustrates each of them to where none of them stand out in personality from one another, but also merges their cohesive efforts with little to no struggle, at least immediately in their formation, leading to very little obstacles that they face with their concerning inexperience.

OVERALL
“The Boys in the Boat” is another plane Jane underdog sports biopic that, despite many glaring flaws of familiarity, paddles feverishly to stay above water, with passionate direction from George Clooney that stylistically and substantially outlines the difficulty of rowing crew against the best in the world. While the script can’t remain focused long enough to justifiably serve these characters or their temporary predicaments, the inspirational side of Washington’s triumphant story, through adversities of Ivy league elite to olympic Nazi’s, allows it to tread through the troubling waters that ultimately define its impact.

My Grade: 6/10 or C+