{"id":43269,"date":"2024-01-08T18:51:12","date_gmt":"2024-01-08T17:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1956036"},"modified":"2024-01-08T20:31:43","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T19:31:43","slug":"boys-in-the-boat-true-story-how-accurate-is-the-george-clooney-film","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/boys-in-the-boat-true-story-how-accurate-is-the-george-clooney-film\/","title":{"rendered":"Boys in the Boat true story: How accurate is the George Clooney film?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The film tells the story of the University of Washington’s rowing team journey to the 1936 Berlin Olympics. <\/p>

By Patrick Cremona\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 08 January 2024 at 17:51 PM<\/p>

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George Clooney has returned behind the camera for his latest directorial feature, with The Boys in the Boat launching in UK cinemas this week.<\/p>\n

As with his 2008 picture Leatherheads, the film is a sporting underdog story \u2013 but whereas that previous film told a largely fictional tale, the new one is based on the real heroics of the University of Washington rowing team, who won Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics at the height of The Great Depression.<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s script by Mark L Smith is adapted from the 2013 non-fiction novel of the same name by Daniel James Brown \u2013 which was subtitled Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics \u2013 with Joel Edgerton and Callum Turner in the starring roles as coach Al Ulbrickson and team member Joe Rantz.<\/p>\n

But just how closely does the film stick to true events? Read on for everything you need to know.<\/p>\n

The Boys in the Boat true story<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The film is largely faithful to events as they happened, but as producer Grant Heslov explained during an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com<\/a>, the filmmaking team naturally had to make a few changes such that the full story could be told in two hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the book, there\u2019s a lot more detail, there\u2019s a lot more races,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we obviously couldn\u2019t do all those races. So the challenging part really was trying to figure out like\u2026 we decided that three races would be the right amount in a two-hour film, and just figuring out what that was going to be like, and how we could sort of fit that into the storyline.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he argued that despite not including every detail of the team\u2019s journey to the Olympics, the \u201cheart of the story\u201d very much matched up with the real events.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe heart of the story is that these boys had to row to live really,\u201d he said. \u201cThese are poor kids. And during the Depression, in order to go to school and to eat and to have a place to live other than a car they had to row.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so you know, they were rowing\u2026 they started rowing for one reason, but then they ended up rowing for different reasons. And I think that\u2019s really what the heart of the film is about.\u201d<\/p>
As well as compressing the time span \u2013 the real events unfolded over three years rather than one, as is shown in the film \u2013 there are a few other minor alterations to the story including the addition of a fictional scene in which the coach of the rival Berkeley team helps to fund the University of Washington team\u2019s journey to Berlin.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, although it is correct that the Olympic final in 1936 was extremely close, it is not true that a photo was used to determine the winning boat \u2013 instead, the winners were announced after deliberation between the judges.<\/p>\n
Largely, however, the film is drawn from the true events described in Daniel James Brown\u2019s novel and paints a broadly accurate picture of an incredible underdog success.<\/p>