Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk sacrifices story for visuals

When the first shot of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk filled the screen, the audience emitted an audible gasp. It was an ordinary scene, certainly — a young man simply wakes up and turns his phone alarm off. But it was, to this date, the most realistic visual modern moviegoers will have experienced in their lifetimes. Director Ang Lee and director of photography John Toll shot the entire film like this, with 120 frames per second — heightening the crystal clarity of the picture to electrifying levels. This effect, combined with 3-D, gives the movie and eerie sense of utter reality. In this regard, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is a true innovation.

Set in just one day, the film follows Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn), a 19-year-old soldier currently in the middle of a tour through America celebrating the success of his Bravo Squad. Thanks to a video of him that went viral, Billy is lauded as the squad’s star hero for rushing to the aid of the now-deceased Sergeant Shroom. Now in Texas, Bravo Squad is set to participate in a football game’s halftime show along with musical act Destiny’s Child. But the day — filled with activity like meeting cheerleaders, getting footballs signed and watching the game  — is punctured by Billy’s flashbacks of his time in Iraq and returning home to a working-class family. And laced throughout the football game is a love story, a movie deal about the Bravo Squad and a choice Billy ultimately has to make: Will he return to Iraq again?

It is perhaps ironic that in a movie where each visual is finely tuned to look as real as possible, the true realism of the story lies with Joe Alwyn, who plays Billy. A new face in cinema, Alwyn imbues his role with both youthful naivete and suppressed distraught. Perhaps because Alwyn is not (yet) a star, it is easy for the audience to see him as only Billy, and the loss of Shroom — who before an Iraq battle tells each member of his squad that he loves them — is something that Billy internalizes deeply. Despite being present at Shroom’s death, Billy knows that he could return to Iraq, and he cries when he listens to the National Anthem in the football stadium. With this, the audience can only begin to understand what Billy is feeling: mourning for a lost brother and intense love for America that somehow fuse into one.

For all its worth, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is a film of extraordinary magnitude. It is an endeavor the filmmakers knew they were undertaking — with the use of 120 frames per second, the story elements of the film would have to rise to the challenge presented by the visuals. This is where the movie ultimately fails. The emotional realism is conveyed through Alwyn’s heart-wrenching performance, but the film becomes almost too pointed in the several subplots it weaves throughout. Without the love story and the movie deal, the film could have been enough in portraying how difficult it is to return home from war, to be looked at by civilians all the wrong ways. Instead, Billy and Faison (Makenzie Leigh) stumble through an unbelievably short-lived relationship; Billy listens to Hollywood players explain to him how little the industry values his story. These scenes take away from the heart of the film instead of adding to it. It is disappointing that Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk tries as hard with its story as it does with its visuals; everything feels awkward because of it.

Based on a novel of the same name by Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is a pioneering effort in cinema realism, yet is ultimately set back by a stilted storyline and unnecessary subplots.