There’s no score on Rotten Tomatoes for The Simone Biles Story: Courage to Soar | Lifetime | as I post, but I’m guessing it will be quite popular with the target audience. Young girls and their families.
Simone’s story is inspiring.
Before seeing the made for TV family movie I’d listened to Spencer and Jessica’s review on GymCastic. I agreed with their analysis.
The Gymnastics is silly. As usual. Poor editing. Dumb choices. It wouldn’t cost much more to do a better job.
It was hilarious to see a little girl and her brother wander into Aimee’s Gym club. And to see Simone doing press handstand series with no training. (Though I once had a boy in Rec who did a good press the first time we showed him how.)
Jeanté Godlock is quite good as Simone Biles. What an intimidating role to have to play!
Julius Tennon as Ron Biles, her father, is excellent. My favourite character.
Tisha Campbell-Martin as Nellie Biles is good too.
Marilyn Norry as Marta Karolyi is, perhaps, weakest cast.
Kathleen Rose Perkins looks the part of Aimee Boorman, but she’s very unconvincing as a coach. Especially compared with Jeff Bridges in Stick It who was quite believable.
There are a few WRONG messages for kids. Simone being forced to do things, for example.
I’m sure the folks at Lifetime considered reshooting some scenes as the Nassar scandal broke.
The Ranch, now cancelled permanently as a training venue, is portrayed in a positive light in this film. As is Marta.
Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.
related – Behind The Scenes Of The Simone Biles Story Movie (Nov 2017)
Gymnastics Coaching.com 