REVIEW: Sully (2016)

Timing is an essential part of storytelling. If released at just the right moment, a film can trigger a passionate response, either from the world or just one person. For the 2016’s film, Sully, I am that one person.

Sully tells the true story of airline Captain Chesley Sullenberger, “Sully” for short. In January 2009, Sully’s plane with 155 people on board lost both engines and had to make an emergency landing in the Hudson River. Miraculously, everyone on board survived, and Sully was justly heralded as a hero, despite all claims and accusations to the contrary.

The biggest asset to the film is its down-to-earth feel. Clint Eastwood’s films have always had a deglamorized realism to them, and that’s used to great effect here as it matches the protagonist perfectly. Sully isn’t some noble figure looking for a righteous cause, he’s just an everyday man caught it in a tumultuous situation. That grounded feeling is reflected in all aspects of the film, even the antagonists who are investigating him. They aren’t snobby or mean-spirited, they are just doing their jobs, and are approaching it from a different perspective than Sully himself.

Perspective is another key element to the film. We don’t actually see the crash as it happened until about half an hour into the movie. Before that, we see only newscasts about the crash, and Sully’s horrifying imaginations about how it could’ve gone so much worse. That’s a fantastically unique way of framing the situation, as it sets up the stakes and magnitude of Sully’s actions before we even see them, allowing for us to be more invested. 

When the crash does happen, we mostly see it from the view of the passengers and those who witnessed it from the outside, without going inside the cockpit too much. That aspect is saved for the climax in the courtroom, where Sully has to prove that his actions were indeed heroic and not an unnecessary risk that just happened to have fortuitous results. Setting up the full story as fragments, and even as sort of a twist, really allows for enough time to see Sully as a person, and not just as a romanticized hero.

And that leads me to the strongest aspect of the film, Tom Hanks as Sully. His performance, coupled with the impressive way in which the story is told, are outstanding. We really penetrate the mindset of someone who’s been through an accident like this, and that’s something that, unfortunately, I can relate. I’m going to go off on a bit of a tangent here, but it’s important I swear.

A few weeks ago, I was in a car accident. I was driving back to college, to finish moving in to my new apartment, so the car was loaded with luggage. It was a head-on collision with the rear of another car at roughly 60 miles an hour. The front of my car was smashed beyond repair, the surprisingly pink airbag went off right in front of my face, and the Buick insignia on the steering wheel left a recognizable cut on a forearm. I managed to stumble out of the car, and my vision went black for a few seconds. I had no reception, but another driver stopped to help and I was able to contact both the police and my family. The police took my statement, had my car hauled away, and took me to a gas station to wait for a ride from my parents.

They arrived soon enough, ditching work and suffering through an hour’s worth of standstill traffic to come and get me. Thankfully, I had suffered no damage other than some cuts and bruises, and we soon collected my luggage from my car. By the same stroke of luck, none of my belongings had been damaged either, aside from a few busted cans of Pepsi. Utterly afraid to drive on my own, my mother drove me the rest of the way to my apartment, and even went to the store for me before returning home. The next day, I shared pictures of my wrecked car online, and was met with the sympathies of most everyone I knew.

This is what makes this film really click with me. I’m no hero, I didn’t save anyone’s life, and I certainly haven’t flown a functioning plane, much less a damaged one (and after this I don’t think I’d want to). But I can see the same effects in Sully that were in me after my crash. That feeling of being in a situation, however brief, where its life and death, and then coming out virtually unscathed, is hard to articulate and even harder to convey. You almost feel like you shouldn’t have gotten through it, and then feel relieved that you did, but that relief is tampered by the fear of what could’ve been.

For me, that last part occurred when I thought back to a family gathering a few days before the crash. As I said goodbye to my cousin Danielle, she called me her “favorite cousin”. As I sat around recuperating, I couldn’t help but think to myself that that could’ve been the last thing we said to each other. To come that close but to come out all right is both a thankful and confusing sensation.

Hanks conveys this magnificently. At first, he’s almost shocked that he and the others made it, hesitating to leave the plane in fear of leaving behind survivors, in spite of the obvious fact that it’s empty. Then, he is elated by the discovery that every single passenger and crew member lived with only a few minor injuries, and Hanks really sells that this is one of the happiest moments of his life. The “flashbacks” we see of how the plane could’ve crashed might be a tad overdone, and I personally would’ve preferred that we only imagine what he thought that might’ve been like, but the dread on Hanks’ face when he conjures up these images more than makes up for it. 

In addition, I really admired how the film doesn’t try to impart some sappy, thoughtless message about how “things happen for a reason”, which I really, really can’t stand about 99% of the time! Every time I hear that phrase, I can’t help but think, “What reason?”

This film, thankfully, does not even remotely go there. Sully doesn’t search for any kind of life lesson in the accident; he doesn’t reevaluate his place in the world or anything. He is affected by the crash (who wouldn’t be?), but it’s simply him trying to come to terms with that trauma and move past it, which I find to be infinitely more relatable that some thoughtless attempt to find meaning in an event where there isn’t any to be found. In life, it’s often pointless to try and make sense of tragedies or potential tragedies, as most often they won’t make sense because they don’t, and this movie doesn’t shy away from that fact! Despite that, it still manages to have an uplifting feel, because as pointless as the tragedy may have been, Sully prevented it. Everyone on board survived the crash, and that’s the only thing that matters in situations like this.

In conclusion, I can relate to this film in a way I couldn’t have just a few months ago. It’s superbly directed and acted, and it encapsulates the trauma of surviving a potentially fatal accident unscathed perfectly. In other words, I can’t recommend this film highly enough! 

Review By: Zak Kizer