When a movie is “based on a true story,” it won’t be 100% accurate… People don’t get married a day after meeting. Record labels don’t sign bands after hearing them once.
But there’s a difference between making a narrative digestible and straight lying. These popular biopics ever made have either exaggerated details for dramatics or completely made things up.
A Beautiful Mind
Schizophrenia and mental illnesses are a tough thing to show visually in a film. For this reason, the mental state of the real John Nash was embellished into visual hallucinations (something he never experienced). While inaccurate, this is at least understandable in terms of getting the premise across and giving us some sweet imaginaryEd Harrisscreentime.
What’slessunderstandable, however, is the glorified romance between Nash and his wife Alicia Larde, who he once threw to the ground at a mathematics department picnic, placing a foot on her neck. In other words: the film took Nash’s mental illness and made it way more protagonist-friendly, effectively snuffing out any moral ambiguity in the process.
Marie Antoinette
Much like the previous,Marie Antoinette’s biggest inaccuracies are intentional style choices rather than goofs. The modern music and colors come to mind but, as The Guardian points out, the film largely ignores the political context and focuses simply on the royal life. The result is both well made and somewhat forgettable.
Overall it’s surprisingly close to the real-life woman, with the exception of her courtship with Louis-Auguste, which was surprisingly more difficult than what the movie shows us. Not only did they not share the same bedroom, but tookseven yearsfor any sparks to fly (as opposed to the few months seen in the film).
Patch Adams
When you get a legend likeRobin Williamsto portray you in a biopic, chances are he’s still going to be more like himself than the real-life person he’s representing. This was not only the case forPatch Adamsbut also the DJ inGood Morning Vietnam.
In terms of the former, the real-life doctor has taken much issue with the film—as it’s coverage of his own extensive humanitarian work was given a superficial makeover into a feelgood comedy. In Adams' own words: “it made my children cry.” And not in a good way.
Oliver Stonehas never been one for choosing historical accuracy over capturing the overall mood of an era or event. Or as Doors drummerJohn Densmoreput it, Stone makes “a beautiful impressionistic painting of the times”. This was in regard toThe Doors, a film that takes more than a few liberties.
While Densmore enjoyed the film, keyboardistRay Manzarek(who originally wanted to direct the film himself) was way less forgiving. He accused Stone of focusing on and fabricating a darker version ofJim Morrisonthan what really existed. Specifically, despite what happens in the film, the singer never threw violent fits or dropped out of school.
Society has done CBGB a whole lot of wrong. Not only has the once iconic club closed down (and subsequently turned into an airport restaurant), but the only biographical story of its conception is both boring and far off. Someone could (and has) list all the ways the film is bogus.
For starters, it completely omits any iconic people of color from the story, as many diverse bands likeBad BrainsandThe Dead Kennedysare AWOL from the film despite their importance to the club’s history. Owner Hilly Kristal himself is oddly made out to be in over his head, despite his true-life success. And what’s worse, the film’s entire portrayal of the punk rock genre borders on cringingly cartoonish.
Pain & Gain
One of the biggest mysteries of our era will be why and how any film studio allowedMichael Bayto make a comedy about the true story of two criminals torturing a man for a month before trying to murder him.Pain & Gainis, at best, an inaccurate and cruel film. For starters, the real life double murder depicted in the film as being sort of a slapstick accident was actually entirely premeditated.
The character Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson) is actually a composite of three different Sun Gym gang members.Mark Wahlberg’s character Daniel Lugo was of Puerto Rican descent in real life, and never befriended their intended victim Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub). Overall this might be the most depressing interpretation of true events, down to the “fun” use of “Gangsters Paradise” over the end credit reveal that some of these people died in prison.
The Elephant Man
As The Guardian notes,The Elephant Manis an extremely faithful adaptation of the memoirs of Frederick Treves. The only problem is that the memoir itself is less than accurate, to the point that it even gets the historical subject Joseph Merrick’s name wrong (in the movie he’s referred to as “John”)
Additionally, nearly all of Merrick’s agency is taken away. The film portrays him as a slave to a series of carnival showmen, when the reality is that he was often a business partner, making a full substantial living from his work. And when you think about it, taking away the business savvy of the character to make him a victim is pretty damn insulting.
The Social Network
As we’ve learned through painful experience, there are a lot of reasons to dislikeMark Zuckerberg. However, one of those reasons isnotthat he started Facebook to win back an ex-girlfriend, mainly because he was already dating his future wife whenThe Social Networktakes place. It’s a lie, albeit a very well-told one.
In fact, according to most accounts, Zuckerberg and his associates have been nothing but nice guys in terms of outward demeanor (their actions toward things like personal privacy and political propaganda is a whole other subject). It makes sense that, according to Zuck himself, the only thing the movie got right was his wardrobe.
The real story of Battle of Thermopylae, or really any battle fought with pointy objects, is no doubt dramatic enough that a filmmaker doesn’t have to invent “battle rhinos” in order to make it interesting. It probably goes without saying that this film is blatantly wrong on so many different levels concerning so many different characters.
There was no pierced giant villain, no deformed betrayer, no glorious protection of democracy (the Spartans were essentially fighting for their right to continue keeping slaves). And the actual size of the Greek forces at the Battle of Thermopylae were closer to 5,000 or 6,000, not 300. But what makes this so extra weird is that directorZack Snyderhas boasted that this movie is “90 percent accurate” and that historians loved it. The reality is that300is just as, if not less than, historically accurate asBatman v Superman.
Straight Outta Compton
While the film is filled with so much suspicious serendipity, fromIceCubecasually writingFridaytoSnoopandDrecoming up with “Nuthin' But a G Thang” as a total improv, probably the biggest bend is its glaring omission of incidents of violence against women by Dr. Dre - specifically, his assault on journalistDee Barnes.
Hollywood is well aware of the pitfalls in making biopics about people who are still alive, especially famous and powerful people, is going to be shot through a rose-colored lens. And in fairness to the filmmakers, it’s not likeeverybiopic ignores blatant acts of violence, sexism, racism, and homophobia… something the industry might want to address.
