With intense grit and a minimum of sugar-coating, the true-life drama “Stronger” tells a powerful personal story of tough love and reluctant heroism during the horrific events of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
Jeff Bauman, played here by Jake Gyllenhaal, was there, literally feet from the first pressure-cooker bomb that went off that Patriots’ Day. Jeff, who worked in the meat department of a local Costco, was there to impress his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Erin Hurley (Tatiana Maslany), who was running in the marathon on behalf of the hospital where she worked.
Gyllenhaal, director David Gordon Green (“Our Brand Is Crisis”) and first-time screenwriter John Pollono (adapting Bauman’s memoir) depict the pre-marathon Jeff as something of a screw-up.