An Old Story Rings New and True


How is it even possible to make a fresh, new movie about a sports figure overcoming obstacles to triumph at last?

   Especially if that figure is a boxer?

   Haven’t we seen enough fight scenes, with fists crashing in ultra slo-mo into faces, spittle and blood splattering?

   It turns out it is possible. “The Fighterâ€� succeeds (against all odds, of course) because it’s not about boxing. It’s about characters and relationships, in this case characters who are utterly compelling, and relationships that are almost overwhelming in their intensity.

   Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg play real-life brothers Dicky and Micky Ward. Bale, as older brother Dicky, is like Jim Carrey on crack (and indeed, his character’s crack addiction is essential to the story.)  

   He is almost clownish in his physicality, his long face contorting, lanky limbs flailing. Wahlberg’s performance is more inward and subtle, expressing himself through watching, listening and stillness. Micky may be passive, but Wahlberg as an actor is anything but.  

   Dicky is a failed boxer, known for once knocking down Sugar Ray Leonard in a fight. He’s still a legend in Lowell, MA, though his glory days are bar behind him.

   Now he trains baby brother Micky, who has a shot at success, though after three losses hope is fading.  

   Their mother, Alice (Melissa Leo, brilliant and terrifying in a bleached bouffant), manages Micky’s career, aiming him straight toward mediocrity. A gaggle of sisters lounges about, seconding everything Alice says.

   Family is everything to this clan; outsiders are not to be trusted.  When a boxing promoter offers Micky money to train in Vegas for a title shot, Alice and Dicky harangue and guilt-trip him until he turns it down. And when he meets Charlene (Amy Adams), a pretty barmaid who sees the family dynamic clearly and tries to help him break free, they attack her viciously. Micky is caught between loyalty to the family he loves and the opportunities he craves and Wahlberg effectively portrays his despair.

   The most compelling scene in the movie is not the climactic boxing match. It comes earlier, when the family is watching an HBO documentary about Dicky. The filmmakers start out with the idea of filming his comeback, but it turns into a gritty piece about Dicky’s decline and fall, called Crack in America. By the time it airs, the family is fragmented: Dicky is in jail, Micky has withdrawn, and Alice (and the sisters) are alone. As it drags on, showing more of Dicky’s degradation, they take turns calling each other on the phone, sharing their anguish at seeing their dysfunction naked for the world to see.  

   The town of Lowell itself is a character in the film too — grand Victorian houses that have been carved up into apartments for low-wage workers, a crack house populated by an odd collection of bikers, Cambodian immigrants and other misfits who have become Dicky’s second family.

   There are a few moments that push uncomfortably close to parody. The Ward sisters are played as hideous harpies, each dumber and uglier than the last. They are meant to function as a Greek chorus perhaps, but mostly they seem there to be laughed at.  

   Fortunately,  Amy Adams and Melissa Leo show more nuanced female characters. In the hands of these talented actresses, Charlene and Alice are far from stock supportive girlfriend or controlling mother characters.

   Oscar nominations will be out soon, and I predict the last three movies I’ve seen — “The Fighter,â€� “Black Swanâ€� and “True Gritâ€� —  will dominate all the categories. And a fine thing it will be. Each one a familiar old story, told as if it were just born.

   “The Fighterâ€� is rated R for language throughout, drug content, some violence and sexuality.

   It is playing at The Moviehouse in Millerton, NY, and throughout the area.

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