First, I should note that I did not read the book Unbroken. And unlike my norm, I heard a bit too much about the film before seeing it. Whether that colored my perception of the movie, I’ll never know for certain, but it is a factor to consider in understanding the various views of the movie.
Unbroken was on my list way-back-when before any award nominations were made because it was on those lists of movies with Oscar potential. Then the Golden Globe nominations were announced, and Unbroken was not included. I still wanted to see the film, if anything to understand its omission, one that I do understand having seen the movie.
That said, Unbroken is a good (enough) film. It tells a great tale. Not having read the book, I thought I’d like it more than those who had. But as much as the film tells a great tale, it seemed to really try to do too much for one movie. You have the story of immigrants in a small town, the story of the journey of an Olympic athlete, the lost-at-sea tragic story of survival, and the painful torture story of a Japanese war camp during World War II. Those are too many plotlines for one movie to do all well, leaving me feeling like each did not get the full treatment it deserved. Then you have the almost-ignored story of religion and forgiveness which are integral to Zamperini’s life but barely referenced in the movie. As great a book I am sure this is, some stories in writing get lost when compressed into a single film.
I’ve heard the book goes deeper into Zamperini’s religious transformation and his forgiveness, but the movie glosses over that with but a footnote at the end. I’ve heard that the book does a MUCH better job at telling the horrors and desperation of being lost at sea for over forty days, but the movie has do to what it can to convey that isolation and near-death, which would be difficult surely for any film. And I’ve heard that the movie did not get deep enough with the depth of the torture of the Japanese camp commander, The Bird. (By the way, that actor gave a great performance.) The film goes there, but I can easily imagine the book making the reader feel that pain even more.
Still, the movie told the basic story. And it did get across this horrid tale of the terror that is war and the evil that lurks in human beings in how some can treat others. And for those things, I am glad I saw the movie, and I never felt it was time wasted. But I can see how the movie didn’t get the award nominations. It had great potential. It just didn’t cross that finish line in doing as much as it wanted to—as much as it need to—to effectively tell the tale in an Oscar package