I took off an hour early on Friday to see Atlas Shrugged. For those of you unfamiliar with the book or its ideas, the movie will actually help you understand the ideas in that gargantuan tome a bit better.
Short version: America has become a society that penalizes achievement. The “rich” are taxed more and more, regulated more and more, and the overreaching government is busy redistributing what wealth is left from the producers to the looters in an age where gas is nearly $40 per gallon, infrastructure is crumbling and there are precious few producers left in the country. They’re disappearing one-by-one.
This was a relatively low-budget flick. At a time when producing a movie costs more than the GDPs of some small countries, Atlas Shrugged – the first of 3 parts – cost only $10 million to produce.
You will hear a lot of criticism about the crappy special effects… plenty of grousing about the transformation of a rather lengthy book into a 100 minute movie… much complaining about the lack of big names in the movie – all the actors have TV credits to their names – most of them quite limited.
And yet…
There’s something honest and dedicated about this movie. The beautiful Taylor Schilling does an admirable job as Dagny Taggart, the railroad executive who struggles to save her first love – her family’s railroad from destruction . She plays Dagny with courage and conviction – with passion and honesty rarely seen in Hollywood.
Yes, they tailored the script and cut out a lot of what I consider to be absolutely clunky dialogue in the novel. Ayn Rand was an idealist and somewhat of a prophet. The novel’s premises, plot and principles are as sound today as they were more than 60 years ago. However I have always thought the dialogue to be stiff, and the preachy lecturing with which the main characters inundate the reader a bit too much.
The movie moves. It shows a future toward which we are barreling at top speed – a future foreseen by Ayn Rand in 1957 and apparently embraced by the politicians of today. Increased government spending, efforts to penalize the producers – those who actually drive the economy – with higher taxes and claims that they merely don’t contribute enough. It’s an end those of us who follow such events can foresee in not to far a future. The movie shows that future in stark detail.
So what, if the actors in it are mere unknowns?
So what if it only took $10 million to make?
So what if much of the book’s depth was cut out in order to make a film?
And so what if the critics hate it?
I enjoyed it immensely. I thought the film was a beautiful effort to bring the book to life.
No, I didn’t think Lillian Rearden was cunning enough, and I didn’t think Henry Rearden was guilty enough, and I didn’t think Francisco had enough energy or passion for anything – not Dagny, not his mission and not his own ability and work. But overall, despite its shortcomings, the movie was a joy to watch.
I don’t think you’ll be sorry if you spend the money on a ticket.
