Just Finished Watching: “Atlas Shrugged: Part One”
I have been waiting for this movie to come out for years. YEARS! Ever since there was word of its production had I been waiting with bated breath for its release date. Too much? Maybe. But the truth is, I had extreme high hopes on this one. I knew I was going to watch it the weekend it was out. Coincidentally, it comes out on Tax Day, when everyone is thinking of the government, in a single theatre around here (as, I’m assuming, no one else is willing to carry the reputation Ayn Rand’s novel holds), and in the smallest of the 16 (give or take) theatres in the place. The number of fellow viewers this afternoon? Rough 30 or 40.
But, what do you expect? It’s not well liked except by a small few that can read it and take something they like out of it rather than what Rand states on the surface. She had a point to her argument on how the government shouldn’t intervene on the companies that have grown based on hard work and the pay off it gives. I’m not saying that she is always going to be spot on but the woman does have a point. Why must someone get paid based on need rather than based on how hard one works at their job? Wouldn’t that create lazy, incompetent people, dependent on the state versus themselves? Sure there should be welfare programs to help those who help themselves but struggle due to unforeseen circumstances. But what about those living on it out of sheer unwillingness to fight for their place in the world? Idealist, I suppose. But that’s neither here nor there. I’m digressing…
Though my hopes were high upon entering, I knew there wasn’t any way that the director or writer could hit it just right. And when I left, it felt as though it was a quickie versus an all afternoon long affair. This book takes time that the movie wasn’t willing to give us. I was gipped out of my “Ah, yes!” moment. I felt as though I had just gotten a long preview, read the SparkNotes, or just merely missed exponentially large chunks somewhere along the way. But then again, condensing somewhere around 400 pages of extremely dense literature into a 1.5 hour long “part”… You imagine what comes out of it. The acting became better with time but it didn’t help me feeling as though it was choppy. A little of this scene here; a little of that next. Either one takes the entire scene or leaves it. Do not chop it.
And what about the importance of the romantic relationship between Dagny and Rearden? Absolutely no sexual tension anywhere until about 30 seconds before finding them in bed together. That tension is throughout the entire novel that is barely skimmed over at best. And the tension between Francisco and her? Same. The relationships were never developed and thus, when people leave with only this movie as their source of Ayn Rand, we wonder how they don’t like her.
It’s not a Republican thing. And Hollywood seems to have missed that once again. Instead of heroine fighting government protocols and red tape that would purposefully dispose of factories (which would lead to the layoffs of many), Hollywood demonizes Dagny as though she too is an evil, albeit lesser than the others. And Hank? Yea, he’s just a jackass infidel as it mentions in the script. I makes it hard for me to sit there and not scream through significant parts that aren’t filmed correctly.
Which makes it so much easier to agree with the fiction writers that refuse to watch their work get turned into some main-stream shenanigan. Hollywood can’t get it right sometimes. But we can’t blame them. It’s not as if she can get up and ask for parts changed herself. So instead, we sit back with our popcorn as the director gets the date incorrect (to make a point, I’m sure), and watch his interpretation of what Ayn Rand gave us at face value.
Maybe it will get better with the second and third one. But right now, a bit of a dud.
2/5 stars.
Who is John Galt?
