Stronger (2017)
Stronger is the inspiring real life story of Jeff
Bauman, an ordinary man who captured the hearts of his city and the
world to become a symbol of hope after surviving the 2013 Boston
Marathon bombing.
Director:
David Gordon GreenWriters:
John Pollono (screenplay by), Jeff Bauman (based on the book "Stronger" by) | 1 more credit »Stars:
Stronger is the inspiring real life story of Jeff Bauman, an ordinary
man who captured the hearts of his city and the world to become a symbol
of hope after surviving the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
Country:
USALanguage:
EnglishRelease Date:
22 September 2017 (USA) See more »Also Known As:
Dar stipresnis See more »Box Office
Opening Weekend:
$1,611,899 (North America) (24 September 2017)
See more »
Company Credits
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Color:
ColorDid You Know?
Trivia
Both Jeff Bauman and Jake Gyllenhaal threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Fenway Park for the Marathon Monday game of April 18, 2016.Connections
Featured in CTV National News: Episode dated 7 September 2017 (2017)
There’s a great scene a little over halfway through David Gordon Green’s “Stronger,” in which Jeff Bauman,
who lost both of his legs just above the knee in the Boston Marathon
bombing, is trying to stand on new prosthetics for the first time. His
face is pained and he mutters something about pins and needles, but
everyone around him is just cheering, his mother shouting “You look
awesome!” He doesn’t feel awesome. “Stronger” transcends your standard
inspirational drama mostly through two fantastic performances, but also
in the way it understands that trauma isn’t inspirational to the people
who suffer it. During much of “Stronger,” Jeff will be told he’s a hero
and reminded to stay “Boston Strong,” but will question again and again
just what that means. And then Green’s film subverts its own message
about the commodification of tragedy to become something even more
remarkable—a statement on the value of images of survival. Some of it is
too broad, and I wish the film dug a little deeper at times, but this
is one of those rare inspirational films that earns its inspiration.
Screenwriter John Pollono’s adaptation of Bauman’s memoir spends very little time on set-up, but Green and his cast make the most of it. We meet Jeff (Jake Gyllenhaal),
getting out of a sticky situation at his job at Costco so he can be in
his lucky chair to watch the Red Sox game. They lost the last two
because he wasn’t there. At the bar, we meet his beer-swilling family,
played with sometimes-too-broad Boston accents and personalities by Miranda Richardson as Jeff’s mom and Clancy Brown as his dad, along with famous Boston comic Lenny Clarke
as another relative, and others who sometimes feel straight out of
Boston central casting—love the Sox, drink before noon, yell over each
other, etc. Jeff’s friends and family sometimes feel a bit too broadly
sketched, but they’re captured lovingly.
We also meet Erin (Tatiana Maslany),
Jeff’s on-again-off-again girlfriend, who just happens to be running in
the Boston Marathon the next day. In what feels like an effort to try
and win her back a bit, Jeff makes a sign to greet her at the finish
line. He’s at ground zero when the bombing happens, and he loses both of
his legs below the knee. He becomes an even bigger story when he
reports that he saw one of the bombers. Not only is he a survivor, but
he’s going to help take down the enemy. Jeff becomes an image for a
nation in need of a hero. But Jeff, with Erin by his side, has to learn
how to survive as more than just a symbol.
Green and Pollono are
at their best here when they’re focusing on the details of Jeff’s
situation in ways that gauzy melodramas usually overlook. There’s a
striking scene in which Jeff’s dressings are taken off for the first
time, out of focus in the background, as we stay on Jeff’s face in the
fore. He can’t look, and so we don’t see them clearly either. He’d
rather look into Erin’s eyes. He’s scared and in pain, and she’s the
only lifeline. Other scenes of tactile process—like making casts for his
legs or how hard it is to get in the tub—add gravity and realism to
what could have been a more manipulative experience.
Of course, what really grounds “Stronger” is the work by Gyllenhaal
and Maslany, both giving performances at or at least near the top of
their already-notable careers here. They’re both remarkably committed
physically, but it’s how completely they stay in the moment that makes
“Stronger” work. We believe their situation entirely, never feeling like
they’re merely pulling heartstrings to get a response or playing
melodrama instead of truth. So many performances in inspirational dramas
are all about the external mountain the hero or heroine has to climb,
but Gyllenhaal and Maslany recognize that it is the internal drama that
will make these characters resonate.
A few of the beats don't
work—some inspirational scenes would have been more powerful if they had
been just a bit shorter—and there are some “Boston atmosphere” moments I
just didn’t quite believe (like the cop who asks for a photo after
pulling them over). But every time that “Stronger” threatens to become
just another piece of Hollywood inspiration, something happens to bring
it back to Earth, most often through the smart choices made by
Gyllenhaal and Maslany (and, of course, Green’s direction of them).
“Stronger” feels sometimes manipulative—it would be difficult to tell
this story and not come off that way—but I’d be lying if I said the
manipulation didn’t work.
Jeff Bauman wondered aloud why he was
considered strong just for being in a place that was bombed. He didn't
consider himself a hero and shied from the spotlight. But the film about
him becomes a striking testament to the power and human need for
symbols of hope, and has the ability to be as inspirational to someone
as Bauman’s true story. It understands the pain in Jeff’s face when he
was standing for the first time, but also gets that for those who needed
to believe in him, the moment was pretty “awesome.”
This review was originally filed on September 9th, 2017 from the Toronto International Film Festival.
Final rating: 8/10 for the genre and 8/10 overall. Stronger is one of those movies which shows us what it means to be stronger in your life. It is epic when it comes up to heart touching moments and the story overall makes more than just one message.
Thanks for reading and have fun watching movies.
