September 22, 2017 2 min to read

Stronger

If only all melodramas worked as well as Stronger.

by Kleon Van

To be honest, I only went to see this movie for Jake, and he didn’t let me down. I normally don’t watch melodramatic movies, but if I were to watch them, I’d hope they were as good as Stronger.

Stronger is a biopic of a Boston Marathon bombing survivor, Jeff Bauman, depicting his life before and after the bombing. Bauman is an everyman’s man. Football loving, beer drinking, and well-meaning, Jeff lives with his mom and worked at Costco. He bumps into a long time flame and goes to support her at the marathon. The way the movie portrayed the bombing itself was through the perspective of Erin, said flame, and you see her run closer to the finish line just before the explosives detonated.

The aftermath of the bombing is the real guts of the movie, and seeing Jeff go through PT and just life in general after was eye opening. Jake really kills it in this part of the movie. One scene in particular stands out, as Jeff is pushed to his breaking point and unleashes it on Erin, who’s a saint by the way. She does everything for Jeff and even cleans up his shit but he still doesn’t man up about the situation he put her in.

Eventually, Jeff gets over himself and realizes that he can help people, instead of being self-loathing and asshole.

Likes: Jake G, and Tatiana Maslany as well. Phenomenal acting. There was a scene of a doctor reapplying Jeff’s bandages on his legs. The entire time you feel Jeff’s anxiety throughout the entire process. When the doc pulls of the bandages, you /feel/ the bandages coming off with the type of performance Jake gives. Especially in a scene after this, when he’s crawling to his apartment complex. You’re enveloped by how helpless he feels with a gritty groan accompanied by each movement. The exasperation in his eyes. It all comes together well. It’s an interesting take on the biopic trend of a fall-rise type scenario. This one has you thinking: can you really be the same person after such a tragic event? Super emotional movie and I didn’t hate it.. Maybe I should give these more of a chance, especially with MoviePass.

• Dislikes: The depiction of his family was a bit too much. They all seemed like such terrible people While I enjoyed the performance of Jake G and Tatiana, the rest of the movie felt kinda empty