I walked into “Patriot’s Day” with low expectations. I find that my opinions of movies usually match best with the Google reviews, however high the critics’ reviews may be. But this time, I was pleasantly surprised by how at odds my impression of the movie was from the other laypeople. Patriot’s Day was able to present a fictionalized version based closely on the actual events of the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013.

What I found most interesting in the film was its characterization of actual people. Though I’ve seen many films that have characterized actual people–“Jackie” about Jackie Kennedy, “The Imitation Game” about Alan Turing, I’ve never seen one about an event so recent that I thoroughly followed. Many of the people portrayed in the film are still living, and this made me evaluate the ethics behind characterizing an actual person. Following the bombings in 2013, I formed certain opinions of the individuals involved. It was interesting to see how differently the film portrayed them. I had thought of Dzhokhar as someone who acted under the influence of his older brother who wasn’t completely immersed in the mission. The movie made him to be a completely reckless, immature teenager, selfish and excited to use bombs as some sort of game. I’d like to think he had thought through what he was doing farther than that. My greatest qualms involve the movie’s portrayal of Katherine Russell, Tamerlan’s wife, as someone who knew of the bombings and who was unwilling to cooperate with police. This could be true. But it could also be true she truly had no idea of the plan and was betrayed and hurt by her own husband. Characterization has the ability to change the narrative, and when someone living is characterized, this presents issues involving the truth, or lack of. I enjoyed Patriot’s Day very much, but its propagation of a one-sided narrative has me questioning how much truth lies within movies based on real events.