The actor’s third film as a director tells the incredible true story of Louis Zamperini, but skips the half that makes it all resonant.
Jack O'Connell as Louis Zamperini in Unbroken.
Universal Pictures
Unbroken is directed by one Angelina Jolie, whose work as an actor you may be familiar with. It tells the true tale of veteran and Olympic athlete Louis Zamperini (Jack O'Connell), a man possessed with an incredible will to survive and some astoundingly bad luck. Or rather, it tells part of his tale — the part in which, during World War II, he survived nearly two months at sea, only to be rescued by Japanese troops who promptly dumped him in a prison camp.
Unfortunately, the most compelling part of Unbroken (in theaters Dec. 25) is barely part of the movie at all. The confounding coda unfolds on title cards right before the end credits roll, letting the audience know that the events that would turn everything we just watched into a story instead of a chronicle of human endurance aren't going to make it on screen.
After all of his suffering has been dramatized, Zamperini, we're told in text on screen, went on to struggle with trauma from his experiences, until he found religion and through it, stability. He returned to Japan, trying to forgive the men who imprisoned and mistreated him, even the commander who singled him out for particular cruelty.
O'Connell as Zamperini, Finn Wittrock as Francis "Mac" McNamara, and Domhnall Gleeson as Russell Allen "Phil" Phillips in Unbroken.
Universal Pictures
It's fascinating that Zamperini sought out his captors once the madness of war was over and tried to reconcile with them. That Unbroken consigns that to an afterthought, alongside some touching footage of the real Zamperini, who died earlier this year at age 97, suggests that what's really important about the man's incredible life is what he went through, rather than what he did as a result of it.
Zamperini's experiences allow Unbroken to feel like an awards movie mash-up — a little Chariots of Fire, some de-tigered Life of Pi, a helping of Bridge on the River Kwai, all glossily realized in a spare-no-expense fashion. For instance: The screenplay, based on Laura Hillenbrand's book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, was written by the goddamn Coen brothers, along with Richard LaGravenese and William Nicholson.
The score is by six-time Oscar nominee Alexandre Desplat. The film is photographed by the great cinematographer Roger Deakins, who includes a few particularly arresting overhead shots. Rising star O'Connell, so good in Starred Up earlier this year, is joined by a handsome blur of other gaunt white guys: Domhnall Gleeson, Garrett Hedlund, Jai Courtney, Finn Wittrock, and Luke Treadaway.
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