The Simone Biles Story: Courage to Soar (2018 TV Movie) User Reviews (2)

Superchampion

[carrick55 · 8/10 · 22 February 2020]

As docu-dramas go, not bad. It is very hard to find 'region 2' DVDs of any US athletic champion's biopic, even to stream.

I barely knew anything about Simone Biles (I've since seen the Gabby Douglas story and was impressed by both films). I was interested to see how a bonafide mega-champion came to be. The story is well told with lots of impressive gymnastics. You have to admire her, her parents and her coach. The practical challenges, discouragements and whole psychological journey are as interesting as the physical development. And I liked how the gradual improvement was so well shown: The final scenes showing Ms Biles' olympic performances surprise, as a spectacular step-up from all that went before; delightful. The journey though all the build up this film offers, earns the viewer a much deeper understanding of what those final amazing feats really took to achieve. I've not been in such awe since Nadia Comaneci (and she had less height and complexity in her moves)

From a rough start in life to the gymnast G.O.A.T. - so far.

[TxMike · 30 July 2022]

I came across this movie on Lifetime free streaming. As a sports fan in general, and as a close observer living near Houston, I watched this with interest.

I suppose it is accurate but don't really know. It tells the story of Simone Biles who had a rough start with a mother unable to take care of her. So she was adopted by her grandparents and grew up in the Houston area. She is depicted as a very talented girl with often a bad attitude but her parents stuck with her and encouraged her. She wasn't always the best on the floor at various ages, as I had assumed, but had to work hard, mentored by her dedicated coach from 6 years of age.

The movie is well made and uses an actress that has a reasonable resemblance to Simone. They also use archive footage of actual competitions, spliced into the movie footage, to give it a mostly real look.

As history witnesses Simone Biles became multiple world champion and Olympic champion in 2016 Rio. She has a natural athletic ability to jump very high with allows additional time in the air to perform difficult tricks many of her peers cannot. Today, in 2022, she is generally considered the best of all time, through lots of natural talent but more so, lots of hard work.

Good movie. Roughly 90 minutes long.