Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for The Boys in the Boat.

The Boys in the Boat, the latest film directed by George Cloney, tells the inspiring true story of the University of Washington junior varsity rowing team and their quest to win gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. The Boys in the Boat has a strong cast that brought the real-life men and women involved in the story to the big screen in December 2023. The sports movie is now available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video and MGM+ for those who missed its original, successful theatrical run.

Despite poor reviews, The Boys in the Boat earned a high Rotten Tomatoes audience score. With just a 57 percent critic score, with many criticizing the movie’s pacing, The Boys in the Boat holds a 97 percent audience score and earned over $55 million at the box office. The Boys in the Boat is based on Daniel James Brown’s bestselling 2013 book of the same name. The Boys in the Boat made some changes to the story, but it follows the same core journey, focusing on the main character Joe Rantz, played by Callum Turner.

How University Of Washington’s Rowing Team Won Gold At The 1936 Olympics

The Gold Medal Race Had A Dramatic Finish

Ahead of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, University of Washington rowing coach Al Ubrickson assembled a nine-man junior varsity team. In an uncharacteristic move, after the JV team started outperforming the varsity team, he elected to have them compete for the Olympic rowing team spot. Against all odds, they not only qualified for the Berlin Games, but they won gold. The Boys in the Boat chronicles everything that was working for and against the team up until the Olympics, when the movie ends.

At that time, the University of Washington’s rowing program didn’t offer scholarships. They didn’t have the money other competitive schools like the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley did, but they did have enough to pay their rowers, which was attractive to eventual team members like Rantz during the Great Depression. This would eventually work against them, as the elitist Olympic committee wouldn’t pay for their travel, but they were able to raise the needed $5,000 (over $111,000 today adjusted for inflation).

When the Huskies finally made it to Berlin, they still had to contend with forces who didn’t want to see them succeed. Despite having the fastest qualifying time and breaking an Olympic record, they aren’t given the lane they earned. Ultimately, this worked in their favor, but their eighth seat/stroke seat, considered the most important rower in the boat, Don Hume, fell ill.

Don was able to rally for the final race in The Boys in the Boat, but they had a slow start, and it was the experienced coxswain, Bobby Moch, who helped push them to the finish line. When they made it, it was too close to call. With a photo finish with Italy and home country Germany, it took extra time for the judges to determine the American team had taken first place by just three feet and six-tenths of a second, coming back from last place at the start of the race.

Who Is The Grandfather At The End Of The Boys In The Boat?

The Boys In The Boat Ended With A Conversation Between A Grandfather & Grandson

The Boys in the Boat began with an old man (Ian McElhinney) sitting by the shore, peeling an apple, and watching his young grandson row a boat alone as a young boy’s eight crew and speedboats passed. The scene then transitioned to the 1930s and a college-aged Joe Rantz. The Boys in the Boat itself never explicitly states that the old man is Joe, but it’s confirmed in the film’s credits.

The Boys in the Boat returns to old Joe at the very end after the USA team won gold at the 1936 Olympics. His grandson asks if he enjoyed rowing an eight-man crew, to which Joe replies, “We were never eight. We were one.” This shows just how unified they were back then, embodying what it means to be a team. It’s the film’s final line, and it perfectly captures their journey.

The Symbolism Of The Husky Clipper Explained

Joe Helped Work On The Husky Clipper

The University of Washington rowing team might not have had as big of a name or as much money as their competitors, but they carried great history and pride. This was best shown by George Pocock, who designed the team’s racing shell, The Husky Clipper. Throughout The Boys in the Boat, Joe formed a close relationship with George by helping him keep the Clipper in healthy racing condition for the team.

It was The Husky Clipper that took the team from their first major regatta on Lake Washington all the way to Berlin for the 1936 Olympics. When Joe sees the father who abandoned him and performed badly, he’s benched. Not wanting to beg for his spot back, he goes to leave, but George tells him not to be a quitter like his father. When he talks to Coach Al later to get his spot back, Al tells Joe it’s not about him or anyone else, “it’s about the boat.”

The Husky Clipper represents everything that has to go into making a winning team. Joe sees how much work George puts into maintaining it, and in turn, the rowers work hard to bring it across the finish line. There are multiple shots of the boys carrying The Husky Clipper in and out of the water, so that it can carry them come race time. The physical boat in The Boys in the Boat symbolizes the idea that what you put in is what you get out, and talent matters, but hard work separates the great from the best.

Jesse Owens’ Cameo In The Boys In The Boat Explained

The Importance Of Jesse Owens At The 1936 Olympics Explained

As The Boys in the Boat is a true story, some other important real-life figures appear in the film beyond the rowing team. As the Washington rowing team waited to walk with Team USA in the 1936 Olympics opening ceremony, they noticed track star Jesse Owens (Jyuddah Jaymes) standing next to them. When Roger Morris tells Owens to “show those Germans what for,” he responds, “not the Germans, the folks back home.”

Jesse Owens went on to win four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics, making him, a Black American man, the most successful athlete at the Games. While this was seen as a way to stick it to Hitler and his myth of Aryan supremacy, Owens’ comment in The Boys in the Boat proved it meant more to him than that. In 1936, segregation was still the law of the land in the United States, and he wanted to prove to Americans that Black people weren’t inferior and deserved equal rights.

How Accurate Was The Boys In The Boat’s Ending?

Did The Boys In The Boat Get Anything Wrong?

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown is a nonfiction novel that provides facts and important narratives about the rowers, coaches, and those around them. As it’s a narrative nonfiction book, the story was already there for screenwriter Mark L. Smith to adapt for the film. Because it’s a sports movie based on real-life events, The Boys in the Boat brought an unfortunately little-known epic story to the big screen. The Boys in the Boat movie was largely faithful to the true story, with some details left out to fit in the 2-hour runtime.

The Boys in the Boat condensed the timeline to only 1936, even though the team had been together for a few years before the Olympics. This made everything even more dramatic and impressive, as did another big change to the ending. The Boys in the Boat builds suspense at the end of the Olympic race by showing the process of a photographer capturing the finish and processing the image for the judge to see. In real life, the decision came from a determination by the judges, not a picture.

What Happened To The Real-Life Men After The Boys In The Boat Ended?

The Boys In The Boat Ends With The Olympics

The Boys in the Boat ended with a shot of the real-life members of the 1936 Team USA Olympic Men’s Eight Rowing Team. However, the movie didn’t explore what happened to them after they won Olympic gold. Due to World War II, there wasn’t another Summer Olympic Games until 1948. By that time, the University of Washington Rowing Team members had long graduated. According to an interview Brown did with TIME magazine, they all survived the war years, as they were older than the typical draftees of the time.

After such an exciting story, they went on to live pretty normal lives. Joe Rantz married Joyce in 1939 and worked as an engineer for Boeing. Still, they remained close throughout the remaining years of their lives. Charles Day died of lung cancer in 1962 at 47, but everyone else lived into their 80s and 90s. Roger Morris was the last remaining member of the crew, dying in 2009 at 94, two years after Rantz died in 2007.

Brown shared that, even in their old age, they’d have reunion rows every decade or so at Lake Washington and informal reunions in each other’s backyards. In writing the book, Brown met with the rowers’ families, and said they were bonded “for the rest of their lives.” While this wasn’t shown in The Boys in the Boat movie, it’s nice to know they stayed close and many lived long, fulfilling lives with their families.

The Real Meaning Of The Boys In The Boat’s Ending

The Boys In The Boat Was About The American Dream

As aforementioned, the University of Washington team was the underdog from the beginning of The Boys in the Boat. Not only were they representing a lesser-known school, but they were also a junior varsity team asked to compete at the highest possible stage, the Olympics. From tryouts to the races, The Boys in the Boat consistently emphasized how much time and effort was put into making their dream a reality. The Boys in the Boat story embodied the American Dream at the time, coming from nothing and working hard to achieve glory.

There’s a reason the film focused so much on Joe Rantz, as he grew up poor and remained poor until he got the opportunity to row at Washington. He only joined the team because he knew it could give him enough money to cover his tuition, and if he hadn’t made the team, he would have been kicked out of school for financial trouble. During the Great Depression, this story inspired the nation, and it remains inspiring almost a century later in The Boys in the Boat.

Source: Amortization.org, TIME magazine