Introduction

Devotion is a 2022 American biographical war film based on the 2015 book Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice by Adam Makos, which retells the comradeship between naval officers Jesse Brown and Tom Hudner during the Korean War.

It is directed by J.D. Dillard and written by Jake Crane and Jonathan Stewart. The film stars Jonathan Majors as Brown and Glen Powell as Hudner, along with Christina Jackson, Daren Kagasoff, Joe Jonas, Nick Hargrove, Spencer Neville, and Thomas Sadoski in supporting roles.

Outline

In early 1950, Lieutenant Tom Hudner transfers to Fighter Squadron 32 (VF-32) at Quonset Point Naval Air Station, where he meets Ensign Jesse Brown, the only black member of the unit. Hudner integrates well into the squadron, which is assigned F4U-4 Corsairs – powerful planes with a reputation for fatal accidents if not handled properly. After Brown’s car breaks down, Hudner starts giving him rides and eventually meets his wife Daisy and their young daughter Pam. The Browns are doing well, but struggle with racist neighbours, and Brown has resorted to shouting racist abuse at himself in the mirror for motivation before missions.

VF-32 passes their carrier tests with the Corsair and transfer to the USS Leyte, which is deployed to the Mediterranean Sea to deter Soviet aggression. Before they leave, Daisy has Hudner promise that he will be there for Jesse. On the voyage, squadron member Mohring is killed in a crash while attempting to land a Corsair. Hudner questions why Mohring did not follow instructions, but Brown explains that one cannot always follow directions – if Brown had solely done what he was told, he would have been stopped early in his career by the many racist superior officers who wanted him to fail.

The unit has shore leave in Cannes, France, where Brown encounters actress Elizabeth Taylor on the beach and secures invitations for the squadron to a casino, impressing them. After Hudner gets in a drunken fight with a Marine who had previously harassed Brown, Brown tells Hudner not to fight his battles for him, but simply to be there for him. Brown is given an expensive watch by Leyte’s black crewmen, who admire him for his work.

The next day, the squadron is informed that war has broken out between North and South Korea, and Leyte is redeploying to support the South. In November 1950, VF-32 arrives in Korea and learns that Chinese troops have entered the war on the North Korean side and begun to push American forces back. The squadron deploys to destroy a pair of bridges on the Yalu River between China and North Korea, though they are only permitted to fire on the Korean side of the border. Brown and Hudner fight off a MiG-15 fighter jet while the others attack the bridges, but one remains standing. While Hudner orders a retreat in the face of anti-air fire from the Chinese side of the river, Brown disobeys him and attacks the bridge solo, successfully crippling it.

Hudner’s after-action report praises Brown but also mentions that he was acting against orders, which Brown tells Hudner will be used as an excuse to deny him promotions for the rest of his career, despite Hudner’s attempt to revise the report. On another mission to support besieged Marines at Chosin Reservoir (including the Marine who earlier harassed Brown), Brown’s Corsair is crippled, and he is forced to crash-land in a clearing in the mountains of North Korea. Hudner sees that Brown is alive but trapped in his cockpit and deliberately crashes his own plane in the clearing in order to aid Brown. Though he puts out an engine fire, Hudner is unable to extract the wounded Brown from the wreckage, and Brown dies shortly after a Marine helicopter arrives to assist him. Back on Leyte, Hudner’s commander determines that it is too risky to attempt to recover Brown’s body from the Chinese-controlled area, and VF-32 (minus the injured Hudner) is instead sent on a “funeral flight” to destroy the downed Corsairs, with Brown’s corpse still inside.

Several months later, a heartbroken Hudner receives the Medal of Honour from President Harry Truman for his attempts to save Brown. Hudner speaks with Daisy after the ceremony and apologises for failing to rescue her husband. Daisy remarks that she only made him promise to be there for Jesse, not to save him, and Hudner tells her that Jesse’s final words were about how much he loved her.

The film ends with a note that Brown’s remains have never been recovered from North Korea, and that Hudner and Brown’s families remain close friends to this day.

Cast

• Jonathan Majors as Ensign Jesse Brown
• Glen Powell as Lieutenant Junior Grade Tom Hudner
• Christina Jackson as Daisy Brown
• Thomas Sadoski as Lieutenant Commander Dick Cevoli
• Daren Kagasoff as Bill Koenig
• Joe Jonas as Marty Goode
• Spencer Neville as Bo Lavery
• Nick Hargrove as Carol Mohring
• Boone Platt as Buddy Gill
• Dean Denton as USS Leyte (CV-32) Captain T.U. Sisson
• Thad Luckinbill as Peters
• Joseph Cross as Charlie Ward
• Serinda Swan as Elizabeth Taylor
• Bill Martin Williams as President of the United States Harry S. Truman

Production

In March 2018, Black Label Media optioned the rights to Devotion on Glen Powell’s recommendation, coming aboard as a producer and commitment to play Tom Hudner. In December 2019, it was announced that Jonathan Majors was cast as Jesse Brown and J.D. Dillard was set to direct. In September 2020, it was announced that Sony Pictures would distribute the film under the Columbia Pictures label in North America, while STXfilms would handle international sales and distribution for the film. In February 2021, Serinda Swan was cast as Elizabeth Taylor.

Dillard felt a close personal connection to the subject as the son of a naval aviator himself, relied on stories related by his father as the lone black man in a predominantly white aviation community. In an interview with Deadline Hollywood, he said, “Both technically and socially, they both dealt with isolation and there’s so many pieces there that I think ultimately just became the DNA of the film.” Dillard’s father also visited the set and served as a technical advisor for the film. His contribution to the film is recognized by a separate card in the end credits.

Powell, who read Adam Makos’s book when it first came out in 2015, brought it to Molly Smith of Black Label to option and went to visit Thomas J. Hudner Jr. shortly before he died in 2017. He was struck by the photographs and mementos of Jesse Brown around the house, remarking that, “I saw what weight that was on him. It wasn’t a celebration, it was a constant reminder of a friend he lost and I carried that weight into this role.”

Principal photography began on 04 February 2021, in Savannah, Georgia. Filming also took place in Charleston, South Carolina, East Wenatchee and Pasco, Washington, Statesboro, Georgia, and from 17 March to 13 April 2021, at the Statesboro-Bulloch County Airport, where a full-size recreation of the USS Leyte was built. The wintry landscape of Washington state stood in for the Chosin Reservoir.

Dillard was determined to create practical effects using real aircraft as much as possible, including several F4U Corsairs, an AD Skyraider, two F8F Bearcat fighters, one of the few remaining flyable HO5S-1 helicopters, and a MiG-15. The 11 aircraft were painted with the dark colours and prominent lettering of the squadrons of the period. Dillard hired aerial stunt coordinator Kevin LaRosa, who created the flight sequences for Top Gun: Maverick. A modified L-39 Albatros trainer was used as an air-to-air camera platform. Interior footage of actors flying the Bearcat was created using a Hawker Sea Fury with its rear seat modified to resemble a Bearcat cockpit and visible parts of the aircraft painted like a VF-32 Bearcat, allowing actors to simulate piloting the aircraft during actual aerial manoeuvres. Real audio of a Corsair in flight was captured with five microphones for use in the soundtrack.

Music

Chanda Dancy, a graduate of USC Thornton School of Music, composed the movie soundtrack, which was released by Lakeshore Records. The soundtrack was shortlisted for Best Original Score on 21 December 2022 for the 95th Academy Awards, but did not get the ultimate nomination on 24 January 2023.

Joe Jonas and Khalid wrote and performed a duet to the end credits song called Not Alone, but the single was not part of the soundtrack, and not shortlisted for Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Release

Devotion had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in IMAX at the Ontario Place Cinesphere on 12 September 2022, and also as the opening night film of Film Fest 919 on 19 October 2022. It had its US premiere at the 58th Chicago International Film Festival on 22 October 2022. It was theatrically released on 23 November 2022. It was originally scheduled to be released in limited theatres on 14 October 2022, followed by a wide expansion on 28 October 2022. It was released as a Netflix exclusive in Australia and New Zealand.

Home Media

Devotion was released on Digital HD and streamed on Paramount+ on 08 January 2023, in North America with Paramount Pictures taking over distribution instead of Sony. It was released in the UK via Amazon Prime on 20 January 2023, in UHD HDR10+, with releases on Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD on 28 February 2023, by Paramount Home Entertainment.

Box Office

Devotion grossed $20.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $1.2 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $21.7 million. Deadline Hollywood calculated the net losses of the film to be $89.2 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues.

In the United States and Canada, Devotion was released alongside Strange World and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, as well as with the wide expansions of The Fabelmans and Bones and All, and was projected to gross $7–8 million from 3,405 theaters over its five-day opening weekend. The film made $1.8 million on its first day, including $615,000 from Tuesday night previews. It went on to debut to $5.9 million in its opening weekend and $9 million over the five days, finishing fourth. It was the overall lowest-grossing Thanksgiving weekend box office in decades. In its sophomore weekend the film made $2.7 million, finishing fourth.

Trivia

• Ensign Jesse L. Brown was the first African-American aviator for the US Navy.
• The US Navy named a ship in honour of Ensign Jesse L. Brown, the USS Jesse L. Brown FF1089.
  • It was Knox Class, commissioned 17 February 1973 and decommissioned 27 July 1994.
• Wenatchee Washington and surrounding mountains doubled for Korea during flying scenes.
• For the dogfight scenes, director J.D. Dillard hired Kevin LaRosa II, who oversaw and designed the flight sequences for Top Gun: Maverick (2022), also starring Glen Powell.
• Six actual Corsairs were used in the movie and many of the flying scenes used the Sea Fury plane for close up flying sequences, according to actor and executive producer Glen Powell during an interview with Ward Carroll on YouTube.
• The director’s father is a Naval Aviator, having flown the A-6 Intruder.

Production & Filming Details

• Director(s):
  • J.D. Dillard … (as JD Dillard)
• Producer(s):
  • J.D. Dillard … executive producer (as JD Dillard)
  • Adam Fogelson … executive producer
  • Bruce Franklin … line producer (as Bruce E. Franklin)
  • John Friedberg … executive producer
  • Thad Luckinbill … producer
  • Trent Luckinbill … producer
  • Libby Petcoff … associate producer
  • Glen Powell … executive producer
  • Jennifer Semler … co-producer
  • Robert Simonds … executive producer
  • Molly Smith … producer
  • Rachel Smith … producer
  • Seth Spector … co-producer
• Writer(s):
  • Jake Crane … (written by)
  • Jonathan Stewart … (written by) (as Jonathan A.H. Stewart)
  • Adam Makos … (based on the book by)
• Music:
  • Chanda Dancy
• Cinematography:
  • Erik Messerschmidt … director of photography
• Editing:
  • Billy Fox
• Production:
  • Black Label Media
  • STX Entertainment
  • Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE)
  • Stage 6 Films
• Distributor(s):
  • Diamond Films (Argentina, 2022)(theatrical)
  • Diamond Films (Spain, 2023)(theatrical)
  • Exponenta (Russia, 2022)(theatrical)
  • Odeon (Greece, 2022)(theatrical)
  • Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) (United States, 2022)(theatrical)
  • The Searchers (Netherlands, 2022)(theatrical)
  • Cinemundo (Portugal, 2022)
  • Netflix (Germany, 2023)(video)
  • Netflix (Singapore, 2023)(VOD, video)
  • Netflix (United States, 2023)(VOD, video)
  • Paramount+ (United States, 2023)(VOD, video)
  • Remain In Light (Netherlands, 2023)(Blu-ray)
  • Remain In Light (Netherlands, 2023)(DVD)
  • Remain In Light (Netherlands, 2023)(Ultra HD Blu-ray)
  • The Searchers (Belgium, 2022)
• Release Date: 12 September 2022 (Toronto International Film Festival, Canada).
• Running time: 139 minutes.
• Rating: 12.
• Country: US.
• Language: English.

Video Link(s)