Rowing is everything in an exclusive The Boys In The Boat clip

A refrain often heard at regattas and amongst collegiate rowers is how powerful and all-consuming the sport can be. That can, of course, be a negative thing in many ways. Rowers wake up at the crack of dawn, wear down their bodies and crack the skin on their hands every day for a shot at a few minutes of glory in a career that, for most people who’ve ever stepped foot in a boat, will end at age 21 or 22. It’s an obsession and occasionally a dangerous one, an angle that Lauren Hadaway took in her 2021 rowing thriller, The Novice.

But on the flip side, that level of commitment to one common goal often lends crew teams a rare sense of fellowship, camaraderie, and unconditional belonging that’s hard to find elsewhere. That’s the experience of Joe Rantz, the protagonist of George Clooney’s upcoming The Boys In The Boat (based on Daniel James Brown’s 2013 book of the same name), which tells the true story of an underdog team of rowers who went on to claim gold for the United States at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.