But Gray takes these somewhat soiled and contrived narrativeelements and shapes them into a plangent suspense thriller that's at once archetypal and subtly subversive.
The intertwining plots and narrativeelements of the original novel, including extracts from a book written by one of the characters and a second story about pirates within the story, meant deciding what to include and exclude would be a complicated exercise.
The writer-director team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck want to overturn the usual triumphalist sports narrative, but the elements of their counter-narrative are sketched in without any particular conviction or strength.