Note to self: if Angelina Jolie directs a movie, don’t watch it. I am going to need to read the book, Unbroken, because only the last few minutes of the movie, which is actual video footage of the elderly Louis Zamperini, was riveting. Jolie manages to make a story about an immigrant Olympian WWII aircraft crash survivor stranded at sea turned POW boring. The Coen brothers share equal blame because they wrote the screenplay.
Initially Unbroken is told in present day WWII with flashbacks to Zamperini’s childhood, which is abandoned once he becomes a POW. Why didn’t Unbroken just tell the story in chronological order? I think that the filmmakers were trying to say something about how his childhood lessons as a Catholic and an Olympian gave him the skills and strength of spirit that he needed to survive as a plane crash survivor and a POW, but it doesn’t work. As a Christian, I’m eager to lap up any film depictions of forgiveness and relentless pursuits of excellence-thank you, Chariots of Fire, but it is all talk and has no emotional resonance. It feels like a footnote, not a life.
I think that Jolie is sneakily remaking old movies like Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence by diluting what makes them great and just making it picturesque. On one hand, I’m glad that Unbroken depicts the sadism of the Japanese during WWII, but on the other hand, the sadism feels one-dimensional and taken for granted evil instead of nuanced like Steven Spielberg’s Amon Goethe in Schindler’s List, who is thoroughly evil but also textured.
I’m really sad that I didn’t love Unbroken since it has all the story elements that I usually love in a movie, but I did emerge with one fact: Jack O’Connell is super handsome. Wow!