Please let’s stop making dramas about Louis Zamperini, and instead someone cobble together a documentary with whatever footage is available because neither Jolie’s first installment nor Pureflix’s Unbroken: The Path to Redemption are as good as the biography, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, which is 400 pages, which I read in two sittings. Both movies shared nothing except the same source material and were not as compelling as the book for very different reasons.
If you’re not familiar with Pureflix, it is a Christian film company so Unbroken: The Path to Redemption has only one purpose: evangelical or to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As a Christian and someone who actually enjoys Christian films in spite of their lower production values and sacrifice of a lot of narrative elements for its single-minded pursuit of converting unbelievers, even I have to say that this movie fell short and at worst, is really irresponsible in its approach to the material. Zamperini is an extraordinary man whose story is innately compelling when he conveys it because it feels authentic like his life story, not like a gimmick with an ulterior motive. Sure the story of his life illustrates what Jesus could do for anyone if you can trust in him, but his story was compelling long before that point (as not illustrated by Jolie’s movie), and if you don’t get what makes a person compelling, especially someone as charismatic as Zamperini, then it is hard to get invested to stick around long enough for Jesus to save a viewer, though Jesus has worked with less.
Unbroken: The Path to Redemption’s casting is not quite there. No offense to Samuel Hunt, who plays Zamperini in this sequel, but he is like a baby Chris Noth with wooden charm. No offense to Jack O’Connell, who is a way better actor and played Zamperini in the first film, but I didn’t think that he did a good job capturing Zamperini either. Zamperini was an attractive man, but rougher around the edges, always in danger of slipping into rakish if not kept tidy, not the square jawed, conventionally handsome Hollywood type. Neither man captured the bit of a rascal, weather-beaten even at a young age spirit that he possessed with the little light in his eyes that indicated an irrepressible energy and sense of mischief that was temporarily threatened with extinguishing. Everyone plays him too fresh-faced, innocent, wide eyed as if each obstacle is fresh. He was someone who lived a hard life and had a can do attitude with a desire to live fully once he thought he achieved success, but not willing to work quite hard enough to sustain it. He wants to enjoy and savor, not necessarily achieve. Then when he hits an obstacle that is harder, it isn’t that he doesn’t think that he can make it per se, and it is not necessarily a sense of betrayal at the hardness of life, but a sense of astonishment that he faced something hard, and there is something even harder ahead. I think that most of the actors don’t play Zamperini with a sense of historicity. He wasn’t some pacific Kansas farm boy suddenly thrown into chaos. He was someone thrown into chaos, survived only to find out that earlier chaos was actually a walk in the park. I think that they could have benefitted from talking to someone such as a Cambodian who immigrated to America at a young age to get a sense of what his kind of stubbornness and survival looks like.
Also just casting big names in supporting roles is not sufficient, context matters. Unbroken: The Path to Redemption managed to snag Gary Cole as a doctor and Bob Gunton as his superior officer. If you love movies and TV shows, you know that these actors generally play villains or at least shady individuals. By casting them as characters that we should trust and not be suspicious of, it is a tonedeaf dumbness that ignores the larger cultural context of these men’s careers instead of exploiting it. It has been a little over three years since I read the biography, but did his wife have a neighbor who was a black woman? Even though Zamperini lived in LA, post World War II America, even outside of the South, was more segregated than before. People would protest if black people were given the same access to various elements of the American dream. It was part of the law usually endorsed by the federal government. I’m not saying that it isn’t possible, but it is improbable so while I loved seeing Vanessa Bell Calloway randomly cast as the black best friend, it made me question the veracity of the entire movie.
Unbroken: The Path to Redemption’s biggest narrative problem is that every character seems to exist in a bubble and only to serve Zamperini. There is little sense that any character has a life outside of him. The movie uses my least favorite narrative device, the how we got here trope. The movie’s depiction of Zamperini’s relationship with his wife is rather anemic. I don’t need a sex scene, but The Lion King was racier. It consists of a lot of frolicking and teasing a kiss without actually going in for one. A lot of people get married with little preamble, but even this one felt rushed. I actually think that Merritt Patterson, who plays Zamperini’s wife, was one of the stronger elements in the movie, especially since the way that she hungrily stared at her childhood church was way more passionate than anything that transpired between the onscreen couple, but the movie does not give her a solid foundation.
Unbroken: The Path to Redemption really emphasizes that Jesus is the only solution to PTSD, alcoholism, a bad marriage, etc. I actually don’t have a problem with this concept per se, especially since it was actually true for Zamperini and could be true for countless people, including myself at many junctures in life, but I would be living in a vacuum if I pretended that I did not live in a world in which pastors encourage physically abused wives not to leave their husband then those wives and/or children end up dead, or some pastors pretend as if they are qualified to give therapy when prescription medicine is actually needed to alleviate mental problems. A marriage covenant works both ways, folks. Only the wife should not be doing the heavy lifting. The husband can violate the covenant, and a violation has the same effect as a divorce spiritually albeit not legally. Prayer can be answered with a good doctor transmitting a prescription to CVS, and a patient following that doctor’s instructions. The one thing that Hollywood and Christian production companies have in common is a disdain for prosaic methods of treating mental illness or needing medication, but we actually need more movies destigmatizing the less glamorous ways, but no less authentic ways of surviving and living your best life.
Unbroken: The Path to Redemption does stand out in one way: by stunt casting Billy Graham’s grandson to play the famous evangelist. Before I watched the film, I didn’t know it. While watching the film, I kept thinking that he didn’t look a lot like him, but he was great at evoking Graham without being an impression and was perhaps the best actor there. Nope, I have to take back all my mental compliments because his genetics and experience demanded that he should excel at this role.
Unbroken: The Path to Redemption is a melodramatic, single-minded mess that sucks all the narrative life out of Zamperini’s story. Archival footage and a brief interview with Zamperini shown at the end was better than the whole movie. Visually it felt like some consideration was given to tie the present with the past in a clever, oneiric way, but because the narrative was not strong, it failed to emotionally resonate and pack a revelatory punch at the end.
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” -Psalm 19:1