Jake Gyllenhaal in Stronger.
Jeff Bauman, who showed up at the 2013 Boston Marathon to cheer on his ex-girlfriend Erin Hurley and lost both legs to a terrorist's bomb, was a man caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Yet this biopic starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Tatiana Maslany eschews all dramatic irony in favour of admirable realism about disability, working-class Boston and America's unquenchable thirst for heroes. Director David Gordon Green even shows you the mildew stains in the bathroom of the cramped apartment Jeff shares with his foul-mouthed, hard-drinking, Oprah-worshipping mom (Miranda Richardson, in a standout transatlantic performance).
But realism will only take you so far, and Stronger eventually opts for a conventional tale of rekindled romance and resurgent resilience that, given how rough-and-tumble Jeff's prior existence seems, will leave a skeptical audience wondering how long this happy ending can possibly last. The real Jeff and Erin divorced last winter.
Kate Taylor