Devotees of author Ayn Rand finally get to hear the question, “Who is John Galt?” at their local movieplex.
That fact alone should be considered a milestone of sorts. The film adaptation of Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” has been in the works for decades, and injecting Rand’s free market ideology into today’s left-leaning film industry is a heady achievement.
How often will you see corporate types as the heroes, not the hiss-inducing villains?
The bigger question is if fans of Rand’s 1957 novel will tolerate a deeply flawed screen adaptation, the first of a proposed trilogy meant to capture the book’s voluminous length.
The year is 2016, and many of the problems currently facing the U.S. have gotten much worse. Oil prices are spiking, the Middle East is aflame and the economy remains in shambles. The railroad industry suddenly looms as a cost-effective alternative to the nation’s travel woes.
Taggart Transcontinental could take advantage of that market place reality if antiquated machinery didn’t keep derailing its prospects.
Enter Dagny Taggart (Taylor Schilling), the company’s co-owner who takes bold actions to revitalize their brand. She decides to buy a new, untested metal alloy from a similarly driven executive named Hank Reardon (Grant Bowler). Dagny’s brother (Matthew Marsden) would rather play it safe, bowing and scraping to the government’s growing nest of regulations designed to level the playing field.
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Meanwhile, a shadowy figure is seen approaching notable businessmen and profiteers with the single, unanswered question, “Who is John Galt?”
“Atlas Shrugged” moves the time frame up more than 50 years from the source material, but the essentials remain firmly in place. Dagny is a force of nature, a driven capitalist who sees government intervention as bad both for her business and the country at large. When she strikes a deal with to buy Reardon’s alloy it’s a thumb in the eye to a government which thinks being “fair” is the prime directive.
The film deserves some slack given its humble origins, including a modest budget and rumors of an industry less than eager to support it. But many indie filmmakers thrive under similar constraints, making the movie’s stiff acting and oft-tortured dialogue impossible to explain away.
Marsden’s wooden performance is the biggest offender here, but he’s often paired with cagey character actors Michael Lerner and Jon Polito who save him from damaging the production.
The growing sexual chemistry between Dagny and Hank offers a respite from the wonky scenarios, and while Schilling’s performance is far from great it’s the best selling point for non-Randians.
What’s most compelling about “Atlas Shrugged” is how it brings an ideological perspective to the movies that’s all but absent in today’s Hollywood. It celebrates risk and reward and the entrepreneurs who make this country not only great but a place where dreams, as hokey as it sounds, can come true.
If those traits can paper over the film’s obvious flaws then audiences may get to find out the identity of Mr. Galt at long last.
(Photo: Dagny Taggart (Taylor Schilling in gray dress) and Hank Rearden (Grant Bowler in dark suit) plot to beat back strangling governmental regulations in “Atlas Shrugged,” the screen adaptation of Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel.)
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{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }
I knew from the start that it couldn’t be a superb film based on its constraints, but I’m more than willing to overlook them if only to prompt the production of more such films in the future.
a shadowy figure is seen approaching notable businessmen and profiteers with the single, unanswered question, “Who is John Galt?”
Makes one wish the questioner was from “V for Vendetta”, or perhaps that he should be Jack Napier asking “Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?”
Why does Rotten Tomatoes consider this a ‘rotten’ review? At worst it is neutral. I don’t get ‘don’t see this film’ vibe from reading this review at all.
This film was overwhelmingly hokey by today’s standards. Not only that, there was nobody to empathise with, nobody to care about. Even the most ardent Tea Partier can’t say they liked anyone in this film, can they?
This film is about evil vs. evil and both sides should go down in flames.
I hate Rand. If the conservative movement embraces that hell-sent monster, they will deserve to fail: because they will be the creatures the Left says they are.
Her whole “great creative people are just being kept down by all the ‘looters’ and bureaucrats” thing? Yeah, I’m sorry, but where I come from, if you blame all the world’s ills on The Man who’s Keeping Us Down, Man, you’re a hippie. It’s just an excuse for her many pathetic failures. She was a borderline illiterate, despite her artistic pretensions; her forays into philosophy, economics, and history are, if possible, more risibly inept than her fiction. She had a degree in Social Pedagogy from a Soviet university, for God’s sake!
Have you ever known a successful, creative Objectivist? I haven’t. It’s like the apotheosis of the ‘artistic temperament’, which, as Chesterton observed, is largely produced by the inability to make any art. To borrow a Japanese expression, it’s the yammering of the dog that lost the fight. Funny, Randroids, but lots of people seem to be able to produce great creative works, and reap the benefits, without having to be borderline sociopaths like John Galt.
All that hypocrisy is bad enough, but as a fact, Rand, like Marx, fundamentally believed that the rules didn’t apply to her. Let us leave to one side the fact she collected Social Security, like any common “looter”: she believed that, if someone “better” came along, marriage vows no longer applied. She didn’t just write about it; she practiced it.
Sorry, but all human society rests on keeping promises—there’s a reason the entire 18th century in Western thought revolves around the idea of “social contract”. If you cannot be relied upon to keep your word, you are simply not a member of the community in which you reside, anymore than Buffalo Bill from Silence of the lambs. If you believe a better offer can nullify a marriage vow, then it can nullify a business contract or a mortgage or a soldier’s oath. There are no magic circumstances that nullify the rules: nobody is special. Not John Galt, not Ayn Rand, anymore than the member of the proletariate or the Master Race.
It’s really about time people realized she was a sub-L. Ron Hubbard scam artist, and consigned her dreck to the oblivion it richly deserves.
Tom in AZ gets it exactly right. Silk purse, pig’s ear.
Gee…how can I follow Tom in AZ? All I had to ask was how long was this film?
As far as people not keeping promises, Tom in AZ, then you would have to say that Obama is Rand in your thesis…especially with the Government takeover of GM and the shareholders (contracted legal owners) were told the rules don’t apply anymore and they were destroyed because Obama and his myrmidons said so.
Quick note – I ranked the film as “Rotten,” not the Rottentomatoes.com web site. While I applaud the film for bringing themes rarely seen on the big screen into theaters, ultimately my job as a critic is to look past ideological biases and recommend if a film is worth one’s time.
I just reviewed “The Conspirator” for another site (will link to it once it posts). It doesn’t jibe with my political philosophies, but it’s a sturdily crafted film with two excellent performances at its core.
What I try to do in my reviews is detail the filmmaker’s agenda, but ultimately assess the film based on its merits, not its talking points. But sometimes too many talking points can stop a narrative cold.
I agree witht he reviewer. A flawed film, but I was willing to look past its flaws and enjoy a scenario that is almost never posed: That industriousness and business motives are good. Good for the people involved and good for society at large. Afterwards, I had one of the best post-movie conversations with my friends, ever. I sincerely hope parts 2 and 3 are made. Very thought-provoking. My main criticism is that too many actors think powerful people are cold and stiff. Actually, powerful people are more often charismatic than not.
Actually, Tom in AZ, I happen to know several Objectivists that are quite successful and pretty well off. While you certainly are passionate about Ayn Rand and her devotees, what does that have to do with the movie itself? Your screed reads as if it were copied and pasted from a Mother Jones article, not a movie review. As the reviewer stated, no matter how skewed your political perspective, judge the movie on its merits as a movie rather than on its source material. While I found The Golden Compass novel to be tediously overwrought and needlessly bombastic in its anti-God message, the movie was actually pretty good and I recommended it, even to my religious friends. I saw Atlas Shrugged and was very disappointed that it was so painfully slow and the dialog was just as stilted as the novel’s, but I appreciated that they kept the premise the intact. Personally, as much as I ache to, in all honesty I can’t recommend Atlas Shrugged except to those who really, really wanted to see the novel on the big screen.
As for Rand collecting Social Security, she simply took money back from a system into which she paid. I don’t see a double standard in this, in spite of her absolutist railings against such a system. Really, Rand’s fatal shortcoming was to ignore the clear warnings that cigarette smoking causes cancer. In true Objectivist fashion, she should have seen the evidence and accepted it. I suppose you might say it was fortunate for her that she was forced to pay into a system that she was then able to collect from, a sort of restitution as it were. But at least she did contribute to it, and by your measure of social contracts, the promise made was that when you pay in you get to receive. It would certainly have been hypocritical if she just walked up with her hand out having not contributed a single cent.
Borderline illiterate? So, then, she had ghostwriters or some other uncredited authors on all of her articles and books? Because if not, then she did pretty convincing job of demonstrating literacy no matter how much you agree or disagree with her philosophy.
If only most of your left/liberal colleagues would make the same effort. The ‘correct’ politics will usually add another star to their reviews.
Her whole “great creative people are just being kept down by all the ‘looters’ and bureaucrats” thing? Yeah, I’m sorry, but where I come from, if you blame all the world’s ills on The Man who’s Keeping Us Down, Man, you’re a hippie.
Rand was brought up in the Soviet Union. If you think complaining about a totalitarian “social contract” makes you a hippy, then you are one very confused dude.
The movie tries to be too faithful to the book. Things that should be expressed through action on the screen are handled with verbal exposition. Even when it doesn’t matter. When Hank meets Dagny at the bridge where track is being laid, he comments that she talks to the workmen. But she isn’t shown talking to the workmen. That would have helped establish her leadership ability. (My guess is that the filmmakers were allowed to film a real rail replacement operation of CSR Engineering, as long as they stayed out of the way. Low budget, remember.) Also, she’s out on a rail roadbed in a dress and heels. She’d know better than to go to a work site like that; she’d be in pants or jeans and wearing a hard hat.
The train scenes are a bit embarrassing. 250MPH on those curves? No way. Somebody get the director a ticket on the TGV. Curve radius at that speed is measured in miles.
Hank Reardon’s office is weird. He seems to work in the reception area, yet his office overlooks a pipe mill. Also, the view through the windows over the pipe mill are inconsistent with the big space behind his desk. Sloppy.
All those supposedly “productive people” spend too much time having dinner and going to parties.
But she wasn’t complaining about the Soviet Union in Atlas Shrugged, she was complaining about our system. The only reason to object to confiscatory taxation or over-regulation or the welfare state is they do more harm than good, even for the people they purport to benefit. But that is not her complaint. Her complaint is that, by some utterly arbitrary standard she herself made up, those who benefit do not “deserve” to. But frankly, what, precisely, did she do in her life, that she “deserved” to escape Hitler and Stalin, when so many much more talented, productive, and decent people did not?
Besides, you are deliberately misinterpreting what I said. My mention of social contract was related to the fact that Rand believed a better offer could nullify a marriage vow: that a “better” person can magically exempt you from your obligations, that the prohibition on adultery does not apply to the (allegedly) morally superior. Kindly explain how that is a different stance from holding that the prohibition on murder does not apply to Germans? If you believe the rules don’t apply to you, because of some “excellence” on your part, you are no different than the Nazis or Communists. That was my point.
As for Rand being illiterate, I meant the term in the sense of “one who is unacquainted with letters”, that is, a person who does not read. She thought Mickey Spillane was a better writer than Shakespeare—QED.
You mean aliterate. She definitely wasn’t illiterate
She may have a point there, especially given the context that Shakespeare wasn’t a novelist. Having said that, I find her prose turgid to the point of unreadable. Her novels may or may not contain good ideas, but there’s no way I’m going to find out.
jic really ought to read the novel. I read the novel a couple of times in my early years and took the guff for liking it. Everyone who knew anything knew that Atlas Shrugged, or anything written by Ayn Rand, was bad literature. I admit that other’s negative opinion of Rand colored my own opinion, and so I often began any dicussion of Atlas with words like “I know it’s a bad novel, but…”
After decades of not reading Rand, I picked up Atlas in preparation for the release of the movie. To my surprise, I have found the novel and the ideas captivating…again. I have a degree in English, with a specialty in English Lit, so I fully expected to spend much of my time cringing at the prose. Not so. Rand had the uncanny ability to go straight to the heart of a matter with direct and powerful language. Are there better stylists? That’s a matter of taste. Hemmingway had economy. Carlysle had verbiosity. Shakespeare had poetry.
Rand has a laser.
jic, like many critics, have no standing if they have not done the reading.
I have attempted to read Rand, but for me she’s essentially unreadable. I couldn’t even get through Anthem, which is under 130 pages long.
Philosophy not movie: Tom in Az “hates” Rand but methinks he doesn’t actually understand her. Her philosophy is like all philosophy – Utopian not realistic. Second, she actually believes strongly in the social contract. Her beliefs require an underlying moral code that she assumes all men must have – the belief that man has no right to enslave another. Her characters are risk takers and because they desire to succeed not for the sake of success, power and adoration (and still look themselves in the mirror) they improve society not as a goal but as a result of their actions. They actually do not want credit for that, they simply want to be left alone. DT improves a RR because it makes her happy ( her customers benefit), Reardon makes a new steel because he is creative ( buildings and construction are safer and less expensive) . Roark builds vacation homes and as a result for the first time middle income families to get away to something they want – privacy – that wasn’t his goal, he just wanted to build something great.
They never overcharge, they never gouge, they never seek help, the rise and fall on their own. As for people who say they are greedy – in reality they are very charitable because they have no desire to stomp on others and often take care of many either by employing them or outright charity (because they want to — not because they have to).
On the flip side are individuals who want to game the system, pick winners and losers and seek to get help and then dictate outcomes. They have no moral compass except power. Why are they admirable?
Of course these characters are used only to prove her philosophical point – so both sides are portrayed in extremes ( although one could suggest that her flawed characters are pretty realistic)
So why do you hate her? Because while her heroic characters are flawed and often seem inhuman they are actually pretty decent role models.
Of course we are human and we have flaws and Rand’s view of the world will never work, however she is closer to how things should be than the people who want to “help” you by telling you 1) what help you need and 2) what is good for you. She believes you should have control over yourself with a moral compass that means you do not exert control over others except by social contract properly agreed to.
Finally as for her “marriage” that is where all can see that as “perfect” as she wants things to be they aren’t. Emotions, love, fraility and human imperfection cannot be discounted. She thought Frank (her husband) should be cool with her affair, he wasn’t. However, when her lover left her for a younger model she was livid. Because she was not perfect doesn’t mean her ideas are not without merit.
In short we need regulated captalism, laws, and limited government to help smooth over the disputes between free men and women. But when in doubt less is more.
Just my 2 cents.
Tom in AZ: You really do have to read the book (or at least pay attention to the movie a tad) and it wouldn’t hurt to study the moral philosophy of our founders: The reason to not have a totalitarian government or a welfare state is not only pragmatic, its also and primarily moral. To put it simply, I have a moral right to my property in America in 1787. You did not have a right to it, nor did anyone else. And your need (or society’s) did not create a right to my property, no matter how great the need. If you didn’t get that from the movie (and America at its founding), you missed the whole point of both.
Marx had a different view of morality: That men have a moral obligation to work according to their ability and take only according to their needs. There is no private property. There is only the state held together by moral men doing what they are supposed to do.
The battle lines of the future for the soul of America are being drawn today between these two dramatically opposed philosophies. You can choose one or the other morally but you can’t choose both.
I always wonder about folks that say they couldn’t make it through Rand’s books. How short is your attention span? I read Shrugged, Fountain Head, etc., more than 30 yrs ago when I was in 8th grade. I can’t say the pages flew, but I had no problem getting the jist of these novels and staying with them from start to finish.
As I said previously, it’s the prose style that stops me getting through her books. If you enjoy reading her books: well, good for you.
The book was outstanding the movie was average. I saw this coming when I viewed the first trailer. I think it was a huge mistake to make this movie as a low budget film. FH didnt work to well as a movie they should have stopped while they where ahead.
I struggled through Rand’s book, excited over and over again by her understanding and then driven to near madness by her speechifying. In the end I came to view her as an important, but not unflawed thinker, and at best a so-so novelist.
I went to see Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 with very low expectations. In part that was because of the known constraints placed upon the film makers both by the source material and their circumstances, and in part because of the poor reviews the film received. In the end I came way rather surprised at how much I enjoyed the movie. So much so that, as I told my wife, “If time allowed I’d go right back in a see it again.”
It is true that a critic must look beyond their own philosophy. Honesty is to be respected and encouraged. Fortunately, although I am a serious (and schooled) lover of cinema, I could just enter the theater and let this film take me along for the ride. And that it did, with gusto.
I liked and cared about the characters. I enjoyed the visuals. And I’m ready, not only to purchase the Blu Ray, but to see Parts 2 and 3.
Putting the question of whether Rand’s philosophies have merit or are dangerous aside. The fact remains that both her literature and the movies based on them are merely there as vehicles to put forth her ideas and political stances. She sublimates the demands of fiction to the demands of her ideology. And that, my friends, makes for some very, very lousy fiction. Sure, you can have a political philosophy backing up your fiction, and some of the greatest literature of all time does that. But, and here is the point, it does so SUBTLY. Rand’s characters and plot are mere cardboard cutouts, not versions of actual people, and her entire presentation is merely an empty vessel to put forth her ideology, it’s not literature at all.
I’m sure if Karl Marx had written a potboiler about a heroic communist on a collective farm fighting against the evil machinations of the local royalist apparatchicks, it would have been just as lousy. Good thing Karl stuck with writing philosophy.
Plus, her character names are largely ridiculous, and they are not meant to be. I’ll go with baroque character names that are meant as a joke (say, in a comedy), but good old Alicia Rosenberg was deadly serious. A little pet peeve of mine, but to me a telling giveaway about the poor quality of her fiction.
i find it laughable, the shear number of “critics” panning this film. can they honestly consider themselves objective? it’s absolutely ridiculous, and quite frankly a little offensive. it may surprise them to know that an overwhelming majority of Americans prefer the free market to communism or socialism.
i went online just to get an objective review of this film, and what did i get? pages and pages and pages of biased film reviews written by surprisingly close-minded, so-called “open-minded” individuals. ironically, the same people demanding tolerance in the world are the same people that are seemingly intolerant of free market ideals. i’m not ashamed to admit it, i’m greedy and want to make as much money as i can for myself and for my family; but i’m not a bad person.
“Atlas Shrugged” simply reflects the tremendous advantages of personal greed, for lack of a better word, and self-interest. this is demonstrated everyday with America’s homeless population; you can help and give all you want, but you can’t force someone to join the working class if they’re not greedy enough to take it for themselves. though it might sound evil, that’s how society works (it’s kind of like survival of the fittest). we don’t discard or exterminate the weak; on the contrary, our compassion makes us the most charitable people in the world.
back to the film, some critics called it “hokey” with a ridiculous story, while others called His Holiness, Mr. James Cameron’s “Avatar,” “…the possibilities of what movies can do. Cameron’s talent may just be as big as his dreams.” do they really get anymore hokey than “Avatar,” with it’s completely unoriginal story? America is bad, and war is Hell. rich people are evil and Republicans are racist. does that about cover it?
Roger Moores calls it, “An eye-rollingly clumsy amble through a Middle Earth of Monopolists for the rest of us.” but what’s more eye-rolling than just another ideologist ripping a film they don’t understand? they praised “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and others in spite of their low-budget, but somehow, someway, “Atlas Shrugged” was so bad that they HAD to criticize its minimal budget that was due to tremendous Hollywood resistance. i guarantee any other left-leaning independent film that faced similar resistance would be hailed as COURAGEOUS and MONUMENTAL for their stand against the establishment! who’s close-minded now? “Atlas Shrugged” isn’t promoting ideas like a master race or human bondage, but you’d never know that by some critics. instead of towing the standard Hollywood Progressive view and writing the exact same thing, but in different words, how’s about writing an original review based on the merits of the film, instead of bashing a film because it conflicts with your idea of what’s right and wrong.
if you’d like to see a different side of the balance of money and power, “Atlas Shrugged” can be life-changing.
i just read John Adams’ post, and he nailed the theme of the book!
what’s wrong with collective greed where people selfishly try to make the most money for themselves and their family? capitalism is not evil, and in case Hollywood hasn’t noticed, capitalism makes the world go round.
not to mention capitalism sustains the entire Hollywood business. it’s mutual benefit; they spend money to make great/mediocre/terrible films, and we pay for the priviledge of indoctrination.
I have to say, I watched both Atlas Shrugged and the Conspirator in the same day, and Atlas Shrugged was FAR better. Even my mother, who has never read Atlas Shrugged and never knew about the conspirators supporting John Wilkes Booth, said she liked Atlas Shrugged better. The actors in Atlas Shrugged were emotionless and dry because they were SUPPOSED to be emotionless. That’s the whole point of the movie! Emotionless and dry rationalization for capitalism/for socialism. Either you’ve completely missed the point, or you purposefully missed the point, and I’m afraid that it’s the latter.
I think the ‘free market’ has judged this film quite correctly, that it was nothing but self indulgent trite. Atlas shrugged and the fountainhead are the only two books of Rand’s I’ve read. They’re good stories but are in no way economic textbooks of which the randites would like us to believe.