FILM OF THE WEEK
Stronger Cert: 15A; Now showing
Extraordinary things happen to ordinary people. When those tales are retold in cinema, the traditional story arc involves an event, a bad point in the middle, before a heroic triumph in the face of adversity. What’s not to like? Stronger, while adhering to this tried and tested formula introduces enough interesting angles to make it a cut above the genre standard. Original, effective and realistic it is a story built around more than one excellent performance.
Director David Gordon Green and writer John Pollono base their film on the memoir written by Jeff Bauman. In April 2013 Bauman (Jake Gyllenhaal) was a nice, slightly aimless and feckless 28-year-old who went to the finish line of the Boston Marathon to cheer on and win back his on-off girlfriend Erin (Tatiana Maslany). Just as she was about to cross the line two bombs were detonated and Jeff lost both of his legs from above the knee. His tight-knit working-class Boston family, led by his hardcore mother Patty (Miranda Richardson), very much embrace the popular notion of Jeff as American Hero. Jeff however, while dealing with the day-to-day difficulties of his new body, struggles with the hero label, an identity forced upon him for other people’s comfort.
This works well and Gyllenhaal is great but the film’s richness is in Erin, a well-written character given great life by Maslany. Stronger doesn’t simplify emotions. Jeff’s despair and destructive behaviour are understandable, but presented through the eyes of another they are not simply excused. Erin has her own complex emotions to deal with. Too many stories like this are about beating adversity, this is about living with, and through, it.