Warning: you might immediately start crying as soon as you watch the trailer above. Stronger, the second feature film about the Boston Marathon bombing looks to be as much of a tearjerker as Peter Berg’s Patriot’s Day – an unavoidable thing for a topic this devastating, not to mention one still (and maybe too?) recent.

The latest from David Gordon Green stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Jeff Bauman, the real-life 27-year-old who lost both his legs in the harrowing terrorist attack. Based on Bauman’s autobiography of the same name and written by John Pollono, Stronger follows Gyllenhaal’s Jeff who was waiting at the finish line for his girlfriend Erin (Tatiana Maslany). (As if the real-life incident wasn’t upsetting enough, in the movie the fictionalized couple had already broken up and Jeff was at the race to win Erin back. Jeez.)

The trailer is filled with ready-to-go Oscar clips for Gyllenhaal – now Gyllenhaal is a talented dramatic actor, but does he really need to pull the disabled card to get back in the awards conversation? That isn’t to say the film doesn’t look genuinely heartfelt and powerful. Maslany also lends some tender supporting moments alongside Miranda Richardson. And dare I say this film looks more promising than Patriot’s Day. While that movie’s heart was in the right place and tactfully directed, it played like a series of disconnected traumatic vignettes as it swiveled between various lives affected by the attack. Stronger hones in on one man’s story, and that’s just the type of emotional focus that can make a dramatic biopic truly memorable, and win over Academy voters. Let’s just hope the movie doesn’t lean too much into weepy sentimentalism; no audience wants to be emotionally manipulated, especially only four years out from the real-life incident. Stronger arrives just in times for awards season on September 22.

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