It’s hard these days—when terrible things come at us so quickly, one after the other, without a break or a breath—to feel ready to memorialize anything. The Boston Marathon bombing happened only four years ago, and despite the fact that we’ve had several lifetimes of sadness between then and now, it feels like it just occurred. Are we ready for a movie about it?
What’s that? This is the SECOND movie about it? Patriot’s Day came out earlier this year? What? Why! Thankfully, Stronger isn’t another grubby Mark Wahlberg movie glossing up a real-life tragedy—instead, it’s a close study of a guy and a family who went through some shit. The guy, Jeff Bauman, became the face of the Boston Marathon bombing after a picture of his rescue from the scene landed on the front pages of newspapers across the world. He was hunched in a wheelchair and dazed, which is precisely how Jake Gyllenhaal portrays him in Stronger.