A Positive Reaction for George Clooney’s ‘The Boys in the Boat’

Screeners for George Clooney’s “The Boys in the Boat” have been sent out to Critics Choice Awards members. It’s not supposed to be screened for non-CCA press until December.

The early word is good on Clooney’s film. It’s no landmark of cinema, but one person I spoke to, an East Coast writer, tells me that it works wonderfully well as a sports drama:

It’s square and very familliar or traditional in a sports movie sense, but it’s very well done.  Clooney’s best in a long time […] it’s certainly his best film since “Good Night and Good Luck”.  It's a '90s type of movie, and I love it for that. Just steady and confident and period authentic and deeply felt all around. I hadn't paid attention to Callum Turner before — he's excellent.  Ditto Joel Edgerton.  Ditto Hadley Robinson. Clooney’s direction, Mark Smith's screenplay, Martin Ruhe's cinematography (love the amber candle lighting) and Alexandre Desplat's score...everything works perfectly.

Last month, a trailer for Clooney’s film was released. It looked like a crowd pleaser. The kind of mid-budget, adult-oriented film that rarely gets made these days.

Earlier this summer, Deadline had reported that “The Boys in the Boat” got such high test scores that MGM decided to give it a coveted awards-bait release date on Christmas Day.

The problem is that “The Boys in the Boat” hasn’t appeared at any of this year’s fall festivals, not even AFI which is where Clooney’s last directorial effort (“The Tender Bar”) was launched, to tepid reactions. People barely had this film on their radar until very recently.

“The Boys in the Boat” is based on Daniel James Brown’s non-fiction bestseller about the 1936 University of Washington rowing team who competed for gold at the Summer Olympics in Berlin.

Clooney’s got positive ink for his first few films as a director (“Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” “Good Night and Good Luck,” “The Ides of March”), but lately he’s been struggling behind the camera with duds “Suburbicon,” “The Monument’s Men,” “The Midnight Sky” and “Tender Bar.”