Stronger

Can’t get  the Britney Spears song out of my head now.

I saw the poster for the movie at my local theater. I had no idea what the movie was about. Just from the poster of Jake Gyllenhaal looking like he’s learning how to walk, I got the feeling it was about someone who lost his legs. I thought maybe it was about a soldier who lost his legs.

So I start watching the film, and watching Jake Gyllenhaal’s character and I realize this dude is not in the military. Then once I saw the talk of the marathon I realized what this movie is going to be about…The bombing at the Boston Marathon. Now I get it, Gyllenhaal’s character lost his legs during this event.

Based on a true story (That was first turned into a book) Stronger almost feels like a section of the movie Patriot’s Day which is also about the bombing at the Boston marathon in 2013 (And I feel got the same small amount of promotion for it). It’s like Jeff Bauman (who Gyllenhaal plays) was a subplot in Patriot’s Day and they decided to extended that subplot into a larger film that not only goes over his experience that day, but tells his story about his year after the bombing with him adjusting to the lost of his legs

I though the picture painted a realistic picture of what it’s like not to have two legs. I have both my legs so it’s hard to fully imagine what this man went through. Even less now as I see Gyllenhaal brilliantly showing us a life with no legs. It was a pretty good performance.

I’m still getting use to an age where something happens in recent history barely four years ago and we make a movie about it, but it is indeed a good movie. Just like Patriot’s Day, I just wished both movies were promoted better so everyone can see them.