TIFF 2015: Lance Armstrong Doping Drama 'The Program' Shows Cyclist as Sociopath
The world’s collective view of Lance Armstrong shifted dramatically in 2013 when, after more than a decade of denials, he admitted to Oprah Winfrey that he had in fact taken performance-enhancing drugs on his way to winning seven Tour de France titles. He went from hero to zero, but his personality off the racing circuit didn’t take nearly as much of a hit as his athletic stature.
The new film The Program, which recounts the rise and fall of Armstrong (Ben Foster), with a heavy emphasis on the disgraced biker’s doping habits, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this week, and it paints the cyclist in an unflinchingly nasty light. At best Armstrong is shown as a relentless competitor determined to be the greatest in his field and who simply bought into the idea that his entire sport was corrupted by drugs. But far more often he’s portrayed as a shallow egomaniac who bullied others while cheating his way to fame and fortune in the most elaborate drug-enhancement scandal in sports history. And at worst he even comes off not only as a man who exploited his battle with cancer once the accusations and cover-ups began, but as a raging sociopath.
Written by John Hodge and directed by Stephen Frears (The Queen) with a high-energy, rapid-edit pace, The Program wastes no time with exposition. We never see any of Armstrong’s formative years, for instance, but meet him just as he’s arrives on the Tour de France circuit and becomes hell-bent on teaming up with eccentric Italian trainer Michele Ferrari (Guillaume Canet), who would help set Armstrong up with the performance-enhancing drug EPO. It’s not just the depicted steroid use that further taints Armstrong’s legacy, though. The film also argues that Armstrong succeeded because a team was built and being fostered (and doped) around him whose members’ primary purpose was to secure his titles. And Armstrong is shown as not just entitled and arrogant, but vindictive, especially against reporters who lodged accusations against him (like Chris O'Dowd as David Walsh, whose memoir the film is based on) and other cyclists and friends who knew him who spoke out. Though documentarian Alex Gibney delivered an equally as unfavorable portrayal of Armstrong in his 2013 film, The Armstrong Lie, we’ve never seen Lance Armstrong rant and scream and call women “bitches” and “whores” until now.
Related: Ben Foster Took Performance-Enhancing Drugs While Playing Lance Armstrong
Foster is known for playing unsavory characters in films like 3:10 to Yuma, and that pedigree certainly helps add to the repugnance of Armstrong. The actor delivers an excellent performance, one that’s carefully measured yet occasionally explosive. He could be an Oscar contender, though it will be an uphill battle in a typically crowded Best Actor race.
At one point, at the height of his evasion of drug testing, Armstrong cockily boasts about the fact that they’re making a movie about him, and it could star Matt Damon or Jake Gyllenhaal (whose last name he badly and hilariously butchers, pronouncing Jai-lin-hall). That planned biopic will never be made, obviously. And it would’ve been incredible to think during that time — at the height of Armstrong’s fame and his inspiring yellow wristband-filled movement known as “Lance Strong,” that this is what the story and legacy of the man would ultimately look like.
Watch the trailer for ‘The Program’:
