‘The Boys In The Boat’: Review

Dir: George Clooney. US. 2023. 123mins

Director George Clooney’s earnest ninth feature tells the true story of an underdog 1936 collegiate rowing team that beat the odds to become champions. The Boys In The Boat is heartfelt and smoothly executed, but this inspirational drama cannot outrace the filmmaker’s staid, undemanding approach, which turns even the most stirring moments into predictable plot points. 

It is when the picture is on dry land that things start to run aground

Joel Edgerton gives an appropriately stoic performance as the gruff but sympathetic coach, although the character, like so many of his cohorts, is underdeveloped – a disappointing consequence of the picture’s attempt to demonstrate that the team was more important than any one person. Still, fans of Daniel Hames Brown’s popular 2013 book will probably be intrigued, along with those partial to feel-good sports film, when the picture comes to US theatres on December 25, and opens in the UK on January 12. It will also be hoping to tempt holiday audiences seeking something less action-packed than the Aquaman sequel.

British actor Callum Turner plays Joe Rantz, who has lived on his own since leaving home as a teen. Now studying at the University of Washington, he needs money to pay his tuition and finds a possible job on the school’s rowing team. Coach Al Ulbrickson (Edgerton) selects him to be part of the eight-man junior varsity squad, which quickly proves to be hungry and talented. Soon, they are dreaming of winning a national meet that will make them eligible to compete in the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics. 

As a filmmaker, Clooney (The Tender Bar and Good Night, And Good Luck) has often leaned toward narratives which see their protagonists overcome personal or societal obstacles, and The Boys In The Boat is arguably the most blatant of those examinations. So many sports dramas tackle this theme, and Clooney (working from Mark L. Smith’s screenplay adaptation) adds an economic and political dimension by championing these working-class college students who faced off against wealthier schools and, eventually, the fascism of Hitler’s Germany.

That certainly creates a rooting interest for our sincere, square-jawed heroes, although the film consciously avoids giving its protagonists much in the way of narrative arcs. The secret to a great rowing unit, we learn, is that the athletes all work in unison, the collective more powerful than the individual parts. As a result, both Joe and Al are rather cardboard characters, the actors forced to imbue these men with a wholesome nobility that is never especially compelling. In an attempt to emphasise teamwork and selflessness, Clooney overshoots the mark, reducing his protagonists to cyphers.

The races are suitably riveting, however, with Alexandre Desplat contributing fleet, thrilling orchestral music. Editor Tanya Swerling cuts the obligatory training montages and race sequences so that the action is clean and easy to follow, the tension rising with each passing moment. (The University of Washington team was famous for getting faster over the course of a meet, chasing down their competitors in the final stretches, which adds an instantly dramatic component to the film’s set pieces.) No matter if it is a conventional sporting underdog story, The Boys In The Boat gets the blood pumping at the right times.

It is when the picture is on dry land that things start to run aground. Beyond the threadbare main characters, Clooney also does a disservice to his supporting players — especially the love interests. Hadley Robinson is stuck depicting the blandly quirky Joyce, Joe’s eventual girlfriend, while Courtney Henggeler does what she can playing Al’s generically supportive wife Hazel. (The actresses’ main job in the second half of The Boys In The Boat is to cheer on their guys.) As George Pocock, who builds the team’s boats while offering sage advice, Peter Guinness exudes a weathered charm, but the character is such a dusty cliche that it is hard to see him as anything more than a trope — a way for Joe to pick up life lessons he can apply at crucial moments during the film.

Of course, what is so rote about The Boys In The Boat may make it appealing to its target audience, which will enjoy its nostalgic bent and uncomplicated characters working together to be the best. (Martin Ruhe’s sepia-ish cinematography romanticises a hardscrabble post-Depression America ready to take on the Nazis.) A successful rowing team needs to flawlessly repeat the same stroke again and again, and one could argue that Clooney follows the same strategy – invoking thousands of previous feel-good sports dramas until he delivers his expected happy ending. But the University of Washington also had to rely on a little daring to capture gold in Berlin; a boldness this anodyne picture never risks.