Review of Stronger (2017) by Alan W — 05 Feb 2018

Much less about the Boston marathon bombing itself than about one individual's road to recovery after the horrific incident took both his legs, Stronger is therefore a less predictable take than you expected but mainly due to the warts-and-all approach the writer and director takes in presenting his story (based on Jeff Bauman's own autobiography) than anything else.

The genre-specific beats are still there and the film has that handsome Hollywood sheen about it but there's also some emotionally raw stuff here and David Gordon Green directs with sentimentality in check.

Jake Gyllenhaal is great as is an almost unrecognizable Miranda Richardson but Tatiana Maslany has little to do here.