Something to watch tonight: Tuesday 7 January

The Boys in the Boat (Clooney, 2023)

This is the time of year where you may find your­self hav­ing to cater for house­guests. It’s not easy try­ing to find some­thing to watch of an even­ing where your audi­ence might be kids, grand­par­ents, old friends, new acquaint­ances. You get my drift.

This time last year, I reviewed George Clooney’s The Boys in the Boat when it made a brief vis­it to loc­al cinemas and I have a feel­ing that this one could cov­er all those bases above:

… an utterly ami­able his­tor­ic­al sports story that provides pleas­ures mostly through what it doesn’t do. There’s no curs­ing, it pri­or­it­ises romance over sex, the her­oes have no dark side and the polit­ics con­tains noth­ing to dis­agree with. While I like to be chal­lenged in a cinema, some­times I appre­ci­ate not being chal­lenged, and The Boys in the Boat deliv­ers on that.

Based on the American best­selling his­tory book of the same name, the film is the under­dog story of the Washington State eight-man row­ing crew in 1936 who, against the odds, went from utter row­ing novices to the final of the Olympics in Nazi Germany.

Recruited from a ragtag bunch of under­gradu­ates – many of whom were des­per­ate for the schol­ar­ship and the secur­ity that the team would provide – the group are coached by tacit­urn Joel Edgerton who soon dis­cov­ers that they are a stronger crew than his seni­ors and who risks humi­li­ation for the school by pro­mot­ing them to num­ber one position.

The back­ground is the Depression, still cling­ing on in the Pacific Northwest where unem­ploy­ment and home­less­ness remains rife. Washington is also an unfan­cied school, punch­ing above their weight against the Ivy Leagues with all their money and influence.

You can read the rest here.

Where to watch The Boys in the Boat

Worldwide: Streaming on Prime Video