Update: May 3, 2007 — “The Flying Scotsman” cycling movie opens Friday
The film adaptation of two-time bicycling one-hour world record holder Graeme Obree's life is scheduled for release May 4 in Seattle, Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Toronto and Washington DC.
The year's first US screening, however, will be Friday night at the 16th Philadelphia Film Festival. Here's a two-and-a-half minute trailer for the film:
Obree's accomplishments are amazing, considering that he broke the world record as an amateur racing on a bicycle that he designed. He also battled bicycling federation bureaucrats who disapproved of his riding style, and his own inner demons, as he was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Autobiography
The movie is based on Obree's autobiography, “The Flying Scotsman, Cycling to Triumph through My Darkest Hours” released in 2003.
Shot on location in Scotland and Germany, the movie was first shown at the Edinburgh, Scotland, Film Festival last summer. Although a Bicycling magazine poster ad shows the release date as April 20, the MGM website and Internet Movie Database list the May 4 release date.
Obree first broke the world record, previously held for nine years by Francesco Moser, in 1993. Rival Chris Boardman broke Obree's record soon thereafter, and Obree retook the title in 1994 with a one-hour distance of 32.68 miles. That record stood until it was broken by none other than 5-time Tour de France winner Miguel Indurain.
Reviews
A reviewer at the UK's Filmstalker website wrote:
“…this film is absolutely superb, filled with stirring performances and a fabulous story full of heart and emotion. … The movie was incredibly moving and on a number of occasions it caught me and I struggled to keep the tears back.”
A reviewer at the LA Times, who saw the movie during its brief LA release in December, wrote:
The movie … “should, like many good sports movies, be a high-flying tale of triumph, tragedy and redemption. As directed by Douglas Mackinnon, from a script by John Brown, Simon Rose and Declan Hughes, it is instead a surprisingly disengaged, middle-range look at how Obree rose from relative obscurity with a self-designed bike and radical ideas on riding position, only to be undone by the combined forces of the racing establishment and his own bipolar disorder.”
I plan to check it out for myself as soon as it hits the big screen in Seattle.
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