I spend my evenings in a similar manner to most people I know - trying to find somthing decent to watch on TV, stretching, and planning runs. While flipping through the options on NetFlix I found a little movie called "Marathon." This is based in South Korea, and has english subtitles. If you don't like to read your movies, and you don't speak Korean, this one is probably not for you. The story is simple, and touches on something that science is just starting to study and acknowledge. The main character is a young autistic man. The core of the story is how his mom pushes him to run because while running he can seem almost normal, and he's pretty dang good at it. So they train for a marathon. The movie had a fair bit of character development, which seems to be lacking in many of the mainstream movies these days. That was a refreshing change. There are a few sub-plots - like the alchoholic coach who had won Boston, and the family dynamic that is the center of our Hero's life. These do not detract from the film, nor distract from the true story, but do a pretty good job of augmenting the plot and give us some insight to real life for the characters. Most importantly, the movie has a lot of running, and a lot of good running analogy and imagery. This movie does a good job showing non-runners a bit of what goes on during the long run. There is the physical breakdown, the mental breakdown, the mental recovery, and the physical recovery. This is shown both in training and in a race environment. While I do not generally prefer to read TV, this was well worth the time. I'm not sure I would watch it again, but I'm glad I watched it. Oddly enough, the IMDB crowd found it good enough to get 8/10 stars. (IMDB) While I do not generally agree with the IMDB critics, I think this time they got it about right. And if you understand the running, you may even rate it higher. If you have a couple hours to kill, check it out. Run on friends!
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