Boys in the Boat
by Celeste Barber
The day after Christmas, I went to the movies with a friend. In a near-empty theater, we watched The Boys in the Boat, a film based upon the best-selling book of the same name about a junior varsity team from the Pacific Northwest, hard-hit by the Depression. The “boys” were the sons of farmers, loggers, and fishermen who made up the underdog JV rowing team from the University of Washington. They beat the team from Cal, went on to row past the East Coast legacy teams, and then won Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
The audience numbered about fifty, everyone ranging in age sixty and above. Not a single young adult anywhere.
A pity, because like the greatest sports movies, it’s never just about the game. The world itself is the adversary. The downtrodden rise up, claim victory, and through their triumph, our world is uplifted, both in the film and yes, in the audience, too. Recall Invictus (2009) and the rugby team that unites a South Africa on the precipice of civil war. Or Hoosiers (1986), the true story of Indiana farm boys who travel in a converted church bus across miles of cornfields to go on to win at the Indianapolis state basketball championship. Rocky. Raging Bull. Breaking Away. Seabiscuit! Every film a triumph and Oscar-nominated.
The film, directed by George Clooney, is based on the 2013 best-seller book by Daniel James Brown. In both the book and film version, one rower is highlighted: Joe Rantz. Abandoned by his family at age fourteen, the film picks up with Joe’s challenge to attain a degree in engineering from the University of Washington, with no scholarship and no job to cover tuition. His “dorm” is the shantytown across Seattle, his meals cobbled together from soup kitchens. Joe’s qualifying for the JV rowing team becomes the ticket to his education.
Joe Rantz and the Huskies rowing team symbolize the uniquely American story about a group of people whose identity is self-scripted through determination, guts, and the we-are-in-this-together outlook for which the world (until recently) admired us.
A memorable scene for me, when their Coach walks into an empty Huskies locker room and randomly opens two lockers. He is searching for something, that one thing that will transform the junior varsity team from pretty good into something extraordinary: eight athletes functioning as a single consciousness, including through breath. Eight individuals with varying skills must train themselves to automatically respond each to the others, the Coxswain and Stroke, the water conditions, and ultimately, the Husky Clipper itself.
Coach Ulbrickson discovers what he is searching for when he finds two pair of worn shoes that symbolize the boys’ shared poverty – not privilege – which will distinguish his rowers in competition. That’s the moment for me. I was on my seat edge for pretty much the remainder of the film.
Boys in the Boat reminds us of our shared legacy, bequeathed to us from generations of scrappy Americans. At the same time as Coach Ulbrickson’s boys were rowing into history, their fellow citizens were hard at work building things, lots of things. Great things. The Empire State Building. Hoover Dam. Golden Gate Bridge. The Tennessee Valley Authority. Achievements made possible by a visionary political class and American engineers tasked to construct monuments to American exceptionalism.
To borrow from The New York Times review of the film, The Boys in the Boat “is an old-fashioned movie about old-fashioned moxie” (Amy Nicholson, 12-24-2023). As we begin another unsettling year, I’ll happily settle in for some good old-fashioned moxie. I don’t even need popcorn.
Thanks for the recommendation! Sounds like a good movie worth seeing with my daughter. They are so few and far between these days.
Well written Celeste! I have not yet seen it but I have heard from other people the theme of team spirit, comradery, support and willingness to work towards a "win-win goal"! Perhaps some of our younger population feel they know what to do for a "win" but perhaps not a "win-win". This movie might be insightful for them! My husband and I will be making a date to see this movie.