Will Ayn Rand Strike Box Office Gold?

The big screen adaptation of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged hits theaters today. But will viewers be turned off by the film's disconnect with real world events?

Today’s April 15th, and it’s not just Tax Day (though technically this year Tax Day has been extended until April 18th) it’s also the day the new Atlas Shrugged movie will be released. FreedomWorks has provided a handy video to show why the world we live in now, is just like the dystopia of Rand’s novel:

Got all that? Ayn Rand’s novel is coming true because Obama makes comments about “spreading the wealth around”, gas prices are high, and protests are happening in Egypt.

Meanwhile, in the real world, global corporate profits were on track to hit a new record before the Japanese earthquake hit, unemployment has fallen, and TARP funds have largely been paid back.

It’s true that there are many deep and systemic economic problems that need to be addressed, but the threat of a nationalized steel industry is not one of them. As I noted in my review of the film, Rand’s fictional world does not match up with the concerns we face in 2011:

The film is set in “2016”, in a world where the stock market is volatile and oil spills occur in the gulf. The government responds with price controls and trucks from the “Ministry of Welfare” which distributes food to the poor. The politicians and lobbyists in the film warn about industrial monopolies and reigning in the selfishness of CEOs like Rearden. The film tries to speak to anxieties about the current economic crisis but its real target is FDR’s National Recovery Administration.

While most reviews from conservative media have been fawning, P.J. O’Rourke’s sympathetic but brutal review has some pretty hilarious descriptions of the acting:

Upright railroad-heiress heroine Dagny Taggart and upright steel-magnate hero Hank Rearden are played with a great deal of uprightness (and one brief interlude of horizontality) by Taylor Schilling and Grant Bowler.  They indicate that everything they say is important by not using contractions. John Galt, the shadowy genius who’s convincing the people who carry the world on their shoulders to go out on strike, is played, as far as I can tell, by a raincoat.

The rest of the movie’s acting is borrowed from “Dallas,” although the absence of Larry Hagman’s skill at subtly underplaying villainous roles is to be regretted. Staging and action owe a debt to “Dynasty”—except, on “Dynasty,” there usually was action.

Follow Noah on Twitter: @noahkgreen

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