George Clooney's The Boys in the Boat is an old-fashioned movie about old-fashioned moxies. Based on a section from Daniel James Brown's 2013 nonfiction book of the same name and featuring a gritty score by Alexandre Desplat, it's a beautiful, straightforward look back at a Depression-era high point as the University of Washington's junior varsity crew paddled all the way to the 1936 Olympics. Some 300 million radio listeners tuned in to hear live sports news from Berlin, and the film shows how it felt like they were all cheering on these big, rosy, heroic amateurs. I've never seen a film with so much applause – the extras must have been just as exuberant as the athletes.
The eight-man United States rowing team had won every gold medal since 1920, but screenwriter Mark L. Smith ignores this fact and emphasizes that these boys were at a disadvantage. Unlike the prestigious Ivy League squads, the Huskies were largely middle- and working-class landlubbers who only took up rowing to pay for school. Our protagonist Joe Rantz (Callum Turner) trudges from a Hooverville to campus; Later, coach Al Ulbrickson (Joel Edgerton) rummages through his team's lockers to count the holes in their shoes. Before a crucial regatta, a radio sports announcer (John Ammirati) shouts the obvious theme: “A battle of characters! Old money versus no money at all! It’s a boat full of outsiders representing an outsider nation!”
The script is as subtle as a punch in the nose, and the editing repeats each punch twice in sweeping pantomime and meaningful glances. Despite some tender consideration from racing shell designer George Pocock (Peter Guinness), we never get a full look at how these eight students coalesced into a winning team. Lead rowers Don Hume (Jack Mulhern) and Rance rarely speak and the others barely acknowledge it. Thank heavens for Luke Slattery as helmsman Bobby Moch, who straps on a leather-and-metal hands-free megaphone – a device that to modern eyes looks like a torture device for mutterers – and immediately breathes life into the picture.
With the female characters replaced by dull cheerleaders, Clooney focuses on the fantastic production design. The pennant budget alone must have cost a pretty penny, but it even includes an assembly line scene where these pennants are made. Clooney is equally faithful in recognizing how little politics these athletes care about. In Berlin they briefly meet Jesse Owens (Jyuddah Jaymes), but when Adolf Hitler (Daniel Philpott) appears in a newsreel in Seattle, no one bothers to boo.
That's why the film shows us the Führer pounding his fist in anger that the Americans could trump Germany in his moment of triumph – and for our kicks, cameraman Martin Ruhe shows a shot from Leni Riefenstahl's documentary “Olympia, “One dynamic repetition of Moch weaving in and out of frame, his megaphone eclipsing everything but his hair and lips.
The boys in the boat
Rated PG-13 for swearing and cigarettes. Running time: 2 hours 4 minutes. In theaters.