By Trudi-Rose Edwards
The Boys in the Boat
★ ★ ★
Now that it’s “Oscar season” cinemas are seemingly stacked full of big-budget epics, zany art house pictures and the kind of head-scratchers that only the biggest movie buffs can appreciate, but what about the movies that are not in the Oscar race?
Enter The Boys in the Boat, a George Clooney directed drama that follows the crew of the University of Washington rowing team and their journey to compete at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. With its January 2024 release date deeming it ineligible for this year’s awards, The Boys in the Boat offers up a comforting alternative to the award-bait offerings currently making headlines.
There’s plenty to enjoy about this film. It primarily follows the story of Joe Rantz (Callum Turner), a student at Washington whose broken home life has resulted in him sleeping in his car and queuing up for labour. In a quest for food and board, Joe tries out for the university’s rowing team and eventually becomes a rower aboard the Husky Clipper and part of the team that represented the USA at the infamous 1936 Summer Olympics (swastikas and a Hitler cameo included).
Not dissimilar to Mr Clooney himself, the film’s strength lies in its style rather than its substance. The visuals are wonderful with the gritty Depression-era sets contrasting wonderfully with the outdoor scenes on the water; the action – the rowing scenes – are well shot and manage to create a good sense of atmosphere (albeit a little predictable by the fourth and final race); and the costuming and styling manage to create the illusion that the actors’ biceps are the result of manual labour and hours on the water and not 21st century gym routines.
The acting is good (despite an often corny script) and the sense of camaraderie and hardship is well captured. There’s scope for a deeper analysis into the blue-collared University of Washington vs the blue-blooded Ivy League students but other than some menacing squints across the river, the subject is largely overlooked.
Sadly, the film is let down by its rather safe story-telling and – despite the subject matter – uninspired. Other than the excitement of the race scenes, the film struggles to create any meaningful or lasting drama. Every hardship encountered is easily hurdled in a matter of minutes, something that occurs again and again throughout the film: will Joe make the team? Will they beat their rivals at Poughkeepsie? Will the University be able to fund a trip to the Olympics? It’s no spoiler to reveal the answer is “yes” to all of the above.
Even the less historically important aspects of the story’s drama are resolved quicker than they arise. When a low-blow remark about Joe’s background from one of his crewmates results in fisticuffs, the threat of mutiny on the Clipper is over before viewers can even work out which one of the unfortunately interchangeable rowers uttered it.
Despite its shortcomings, The Boys on the Boat is undeniably enjoyable and is the kind of feel-good movie to distract from the pomp and politics of the award-baiters showing in Screen 1. In a pond full of bigger fish, this minnow makes just the right splash.
In cinemas from Jan 12, 12A