It took a lot of balls to make United 93. The potential for angry backlash is HUGE!!! But the film’s producers seem to have done it right. They enlisted the help of the families of the people on Flight 93 and consulted with the through the whole process. The film opened at the Tribecca Film Festival (Also gutsy to open the film in New York), and the response seems to be very positive.
The folks at Yahoo News give us this:
At Tuesday’s premiere, the screen went dark after the stomach-turning sequence showing the plane’s nosedive. The theater was silent except for the gut-wrenching sobs and wails from the loge, where the relatives were seated together.
Moviegoers absorbed and shared their pain. Throughout the screening, they wept, drew sharp breaths, gasped and covered their faces with their hands. They shifted in their seats, sometimes to look back at the family section.
“You saw moviemaking and real life come together,” said Jeffrey Sachs, a consultant from Manhattan who attended the premiere. “It fills in the mystery of what happened.”
It sounds like the film accomplished exactly what it set out to do. Be a respectful telling of the story of United 93. I haven’t seen the film yet myself… but if they did pull that off, the producers and director will deserve a lot of praise. I’ll be the first one to give it to them.
