With the help of his on-again, off-again girlfriend Erin (Maslany) and high-tech prosthetics, heвЂ™s going to regain that ability.Д«ut fairly early in this storyline, Green and screenwriter John Pollono make clear that the real journey Jeff has to undertake is the internal one. And early on in Stronger, it feels like the same basic arc is being set up. In most inspirational true-life stories - but especially in the ones that fail - a characterвЂ™s internal journey is often treated as secondary to their external one. Stronger works where so many other films like it fail for one simple reason Jake Gyllenhaal is terrific in Stronger. For all future iterations on the form, however, Stronger offers one big lesson worth learning. ItвЂ™s a great reminder why Hollywood keeps making movies like this and why the Oscars love them so much. And yes, I could quibble with a few choices here and there, particularly when it comes to the movieвЂ™s score and a couple of its climactic scenes.Д«ut Stronger just works, thanks to strong performances across the board and lovely, understated direction from Green (whoвЂ™s tremendous at how he uses the frame to highlight his actors). Yes, it follows the inspirational true-life story format almost chapter and verse, right down to the part where Gyllenhaal breaks down weeping about how he canвЂ™t do it anymore. And female lead Tatiana Maslany is terrific on TVвЂ™s Orphan Black but has never had a film role of this stature.Д«ut fortunately, almost everything in Stronger works really well. (His 2015 Oscar bid, Our Brand Is Crisis, sank without a trace for good reason.) Its star, Jake Gyllenhaal, can give performances that range from magnetic to misguided. Plus, Stronger hails from director David Gordon Green, whose work is often great but is, to put it kindly, hit-or-miss over the last few years. Think, for instance, of 2015вЂ™s Jennifer Lawrence vehicle Joy, which had all sorts of problems, but first and foremost an inability to tell the вЂњnormal woman triumphs over adversity to win her fortuneвЂќ story in a way that earned its (would be) soaring climax. The вЂњinspirational true-life storyвЂќ has become a bit of a picked-on genre in recent years, thanks to how many mediocre or even outright bad versions lean heavily on the schmaltz and sentimentality in hopes of winning Oscar gold. Vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark

Stronger movie