“Atlas Shrugged” – the Movie Is Finally Here!

I never thought it would happen, but Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” has finally been released and it is great! (official website)

Actually, just Part 1 was released yesterday.  It will be a trilogy, since the book is over 1,000 pages.  It’s been about 15 years since I read the book, which first appeared in 1957, but the message has never been needed more than now.

It is being independently distributed which means I only know of three theaters within 100 miles of Atlanta that are showing it.  The website has a place to request the movie be shown in your area.  MovieFone.com’s reviews show that 92% of people like the movie, but only 27% of movie critics like it.  That figures, since most movie critics are limousine liberals and the message of “Atlas Shrugged” is anathema to them.  The book is sort of the Libertarian’s credo, but it makes Liberals/Progressives spit nails.

Here’s my review: The movie does a good job of generally following the book but manages to be paced well and doesn’t lag.  I’ve written books and screenplays and I know how difficult it can be to adapt one to the other.  “Atlas Shrugged” is one of those “unfilmable” books, because there is SO MUCH lofty dialog (pages and pages of it), but the movie captures the essence without slowing the pace.  My wife hasn’t read the book so I asked her if she followed everything and she said she did.  In fact, she exclaimed her disappointment when it ended with “To Be Continued…” and said it didn’t feel as long as it was.

I was curious, going in, how they would make the railroads as important in the movie as they are in the book, and they actually solved that problem neatly in the first couple of minutes (I won’t give it away).  Still there are incongruities because things are so different now than they were in 1957.  I wasn’t sure but what they might set the movie in the 1950s, but, while that would have solved the incongruities, it would have also made its message easier to dismiss as belonging to another time.

One difficulty that the movie has no less than the book is that the heroes are corporate tycoons, which are the favorite whipping boys of the establishment in Hollywood (if I see one more movie where the villain is a real estate developer I may scream!).  Most people are accustomed to thinking of corporate management as undeserving of their salaries and “workers” as unappreciated and the real reason for business success.  Getting the average person to get their minds around the creativity and risk required to launch a business venture is difficult.  However, if a few people are made to think about where real value comes from, maybe the tide can be turned away from the “looters” (Ayn Rand’s word) that are in control of Washington DC today.