Atlas Shrugged - Part I

My wife and I saw the movie "Atlas Shrugged - Part I", the weekend it opened.  I thought I'd offer a review.

I need to make a couple points first.  I've read the book twice in the last few years.  It's a sometimes difficult book to read, Ms. Rand seriously needed an editor.  I'm also not a big fan of Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, I believe it's another of those concepts that looks better on paper than it works in reality, just like Socialism, Communism, and Utopianism.  Still, I think she has some valid points to make.

Since I'm sure a few of my loyal readers haven't read the book, let me offer a synopsis.  Atlas Shrugged (the book) takes place in the indeterminate future, the movie is actually set in 2016.  The United States, along with the rest of the world, is in the throes of a recession.  There are a few companies that are still profitable, chief among these are Taggart Transcontinental (the largest railroad in the nation.  The CEO is James Taggart but the company is really run by the Operating Vice President, his sister Dagney.), Wyatt Oil (an oil company drilling previously untapped reserves in Colorado, operated by Ellis Wyatt) and Rearden Steel (a steel company in Pennsylvania, which is successful mostly because the company owns its own iron and coal mines, so it's not at the mercy of any other company to supply the raw materials it needs.  The company is run by Henry "Hank" Rearden, who has also developed a new metal that's cheaper and stronger than steel.).  These successful companies attract, in Rand's words, moochers and looters, meaning those people who believe they have a right to the fruits of success because they need them, and those who will just take those fruits, respectively.  The government, supported by the less-competent executives of less-successful companies, passes legislation to take from the successful companies because it isn't fair that some companies are successful while others aren't.  In the background, numerous successful people are just disappearing, quitting their jobs or abandoning their companies, never to be heard from again.  People repeatedly ask "Who is John Galt."

The critics have been nearly universal in their hatred of the movie.  Many of their criticisms stem from the attempt to bring a book about the future that was written in 1957 to the screen.  Ayn Rand didn't anticipate extensive air travel, computers, cell phones, or a whole host of other technological marvels that are everyday tools of the people sitting in the theaters fifty years later.  There was some attempt to explain or incorporate those technologies into the movie, and I thought they were mostly effective.  As an example, very near the beginning of the movie we overhear a news report stating that, due to turmoil in the Middle East, gasoline has reached $37.50 per gallon, meaning that it's just too expensive to drive or fly, so trains were the most cost effective method of travelling long distances.

So, on to the review.  I liked it.  I didn't LOVE it, but I liked it.  I thought the acting could have been better, but the characters were fairly convincing, or at least instantly recognizable from the characters in the book.  There were some things left out, which given my aforementioned belief that Ms Rand needed the services of a good editor is a good thing.  There were places where a LITTLE more detail would have gone well to explain things to a person, like my wife, who's never read the book, but all in all I think the movie did a good job.

Better acting might have elevated a decent movie to a good one.  The reason for this is two-fold, one is the budget, and the other is that the vast majority of Hollywood actors wouldn't have touched this movie with a ten foot pole.  Still, I would have loved to have seen, say,  Gary Sinise as Hank Rearden.  I honestly don't know what current actress could have played Dagney Taggart though.  Few actresses can combine youth and beauty with the hard-as-nails (nails made of Rearden Metal no less) toughness her character requires.  Taylor Schilling did about as good a job as anyone could have and probably better than most Hollywood A-list actresses would have.  (Maybe there's a discussion of the current crop of young actresses in a future blog post?)

All in all it's a movie that's worth seeing, and I hope they make enough money on it to go forward with parts two and three.  While, as I said above, I have some problems with Objectivism, I think the warnings about the impact of certain policies is one that needs to be voiced.