A real hero here
GENTLE reminder to Hollywood from a Massachusetts native: Not everyone in the Boston area talks like they’re from Southie. In “Stronger,” the true story of Boston Marathon bombing victim Jeff Bauman, Jake Gyllenhaal makes a meal of his character’s dropped R’s, as does everyone playing his working-class Chelmsford loved ones. “Yuh f-- kin’ legs? Theyah gone, bro,” is how Gyllenhaal’s Bauman is informed he’s been in a devastating attack. I’ve watched interviews with the real guy, and he, at any rate, doesn’t speak like a goon from “The Departed.”
That aside, “Stronger” is an insightful reflection on becoming an unintentional American hero through horrific circumstances. Bauman is a Costco employee who lives with his mom, Patty (Miranda Richardson), and yearns to win back Erin (Tatiana Maslany), the exgirlfriend who broke up with him for being lazy and directionless. Standing on the sidelines of the marathon she’s running, Bauman ends up next to the bomber, and loses his lower legs in the blast.
Gyllenhaal has evolved into a leading man who’s also a real chameleon. He gives himself completely over to the character — gray around the gills and haunted in the eyes, trying not to let anyone see his PTSD while he’s being publicly lauded for being “Boston Strong.” Maslany is solid as the partner whose empathy is stretched to the breaking point, and Richardson gives a nuanced performance as Jeff’s hard-drinking mom.
Director David Gordon Green (“Our Brand Is Crisis”) generally skips feel-good cliché to chronicle Bauman’s struggle with being painted as the face of never letting the terrorists win. (“Really?” he slurs drunkenly to a selfie-seeking stranger. “’Cause from where I’m sitting, they at least got on the scoreboard.”) But his eventual connection with “the man in the cowboy hat” (Carlos Sanz) who saved his life is the film’s most moving moment — a quiet embodiment of American greatness.
Running time: 119 minutes. Rated R (profanity, violence, disturbing images). Now playing.