Atlas Shrugged: Part I
First of all, let me make clear that, I have never read Ayn Rand’s massive tome. I own a copy of it, intending to read it at some point, to see what all the fuss is about. But I just haven’t been inspired enough to read it, although the night before writing this review, I did finally start. I didn’t get very far, but I was tired.
However, as I started watching “Atlas Shrugged: Part I,” it occurred to me that I probably won’t understand much of Rand’s philosophy in seeing it. This is, very much, a movie of its time, made by filmmakers with an agenda, with their own point-of-view to impart. The opening montage has breathless narration that sets the stage for the world the characters live in. The year is 2016, and government regulations have crippled businesses in their ability to create. Gas prices are at $37/gallon, making the most feasible form of transportation railroads. The world is in an economic depression; meanwhile, titans of industry are going missing, and a question is eating at people, “Who is John Galt?”
It is in this business environment that we pick up the story of Taggart Transcontinental railroad. Inherited by a brother and sister (Johnny and Dagny), they are finding business difficult after a derailment costs them business interests. Rather than going with their usual steel supplier to repair the track that is damaged, Dagny (Taylor Schilling) is going with an innovative new steel by Hank Reardon (Grant Bowler). It’s untested, and despised within the industry, but Dagny sees the potential with the partnership. Meanwhile, her brother Johnny (Matthew Marsden) looks to his “friends in Washington” to prop up their business, and put their competition out of business.
If the narrative of this film, based on the first third of Rand’s novel, was as breathless as composer Elia Cmiral’s music, this might be an exciting movie. The film is nothing more than a series of meetings and dinners, dealing with the finite details of business and politics with all the passion of an economics textbook. The screenplay by John Aglialoro (the film’s producer and book’s rights holder) and Brian Patrick O’Toole is flat in tone, doing the actors (no big names, but a lot of good character actors) no favors, although they do the best they can. And although the budget was not optimal for this type of film, but director Paul Johansson makes sure that the film doesn’t look like a low-budget production, although it doesn’t look like a $100 million production, either.
I mentioned earlier that the film appears made by people with an agenda, and that’s true. They seem to agree with Rand’s philosophy of less-government oversight, and more freedom for businessmen (and women) to innovate. Of course, the real world is more complicated than that, but the filmmakers don’t seem interested in acknowledging that. Their point is to stay completely true to Rand’s novel. What this material really needs is a filmmaker who not only will delve deeper into the novel’s ideas than this film does, but also one who isn’t beholden to Rand’s philosophy. A more objective eye, is what I’m getting at. This is a film made to extol the virtues of business profits and interests at the expense of society as a whole. The individual doesn’t matter, unless they’re at the upper echelon of society. And government is evil, and will take what they want from the people who create. Maybe fans of Rand will get more out of this film than I did.
