★★★
Ah, biopics – the standard rollout for the awards season. Rarely, though, are they so openly and deeply critical of their subject. Whether or not the wound still stings, screenwriter John Hodge and director Stephen Frears take a scalpel to the life and career of Lance Armstrong, with satisfying if limited results.
American cyclist Armstrong (Ben Foster) wants to be the best there is, and the proving ground is the Tour de France. But as he reaches the heights of his career, overcoming cancer and rising to define the sport, he is investigated by sports journalist David Walsh (Chris O’Dowd), who is convinced the Tour’s rampant doping problem is centered around its star.
No doubt about it – in this iteration of the story, Armstrong is the villain. It’s a perspective driven by the source material – Walsh’s book Seven Deadly Sins – as well as the evidence provided in the case against him, but a more nuanced approach may have brought out something really special in Foster’s embodiment of the man.
As it is, Foster is still inherently watchable, as is the intrigue around him and the singular drive he has to win. But the formula raises questions: we are rushed through enormously important life events (like the cancer years, Armstrong meeting his wife, having kids, et cetera) that would colour the way we perceive him. And after the wedding, Armstrong’s family is completely absent. It’s an oversight that undercuts the story’s strong foundations.
There are lots of familiar faces doing familiar things, in fact. O’Dowd is charming and believable as ever; Jesse Plemons revisits the Friday Night Lights glory days in his turn as country boy Floyd Landis; and a cameo from the legendary Dustin Hoffman reminds us what we’re all missing.
The film also carries all the trademark flair of a political thriller. Intrigue and subterfuge are the order of the day, and often more striking than any personal achievements. This, again, shapes how we are meant to view Armstrong – not as someone who changed the world, but as someone who lied to us all from the very beginning.
Armstrong’s simultaneous rise to the top and race to the bottom makes for a tale of Ozymandian proportions, but the choice to immediately reveal without nuance the mechanisms behind the illusion rob the film of more potent catharsis. Nevertheless, this is a solid and entertaining portrait of the sport’s most astonishing con.
The Programopens in cinemas on Thursday November 26.
