Year's Best offer So Far

Rating: 10/10 (11 June 2005)

Films about the Great Depression are tricky, because in a time when one must pay nine dollars to see a movie, it is hard to make an audience understand the level of desperation people lived in during that time. Ron Howard's Cinderella Man, starring Russell Crowe as long shot heavyweight contender Jim Braddock, skillfully and subtly weaves in stories of daily life during the depression, into the fabric of what could have been a conventional boxing story. Superbly acted and flawlessly made, Cinderella Man is a depression piece worth the price of admission.
The film begins in 1929 where a young Jim Braddock is close to a shot at the heavyweight championship. The main characters are quickly introduced before the film jumps ahead five years, where an older Braddock loses his boxing license after an ugly fight. We learn he lost his championship bout as well as most of his money in stocks, and that age and injury have stripped away any promise he once had. Struggling to pay the bills, Braddock is forced to freelance work on the New York docks where a broken hand hurts his chances of being hired for a day's work.
During the early parts of the film it would have been easy for Ron Howard to try and drum up sympathy for the common American man by inserting overhead shots of long lines at soup kitchens, while some languid score played on. Instead Howard chooses smaller scale scenes to punctuate the harsh realities of daily life. In the films most powerful moment, Jim goes down to Madison Square Garden and in front of sportswriters and boxing promoters, who once knew him as a powerful fighter, begs for spare change so he can have the heat turned back on at his home.
Eventually Braddock's longtime trainer Joe Gould (the brilliant Paul Giamatti) gets him a fight against a heavily favored opponent. Braddock, whose injuries have healed, wins and keeps winning, building a large working class fan base and re-building his reputation as a boxer. This leads to a showdown match with killer heavyweight champion Max Baer (Craig Bierko), and Braddock's last chance to achieve financial security.
Crowe's performance is the heart of the film, because with Braddock he creates a layered character instead of a Rockyesque thug. In the film's best scene, boxing promoter Jimmy Johnston (Bruce McGill) tries to convince Braddock to back out of the championship fight lest Braddock get hurt and Johnston become liable. Braddock explains, with just a hint of disgust at Johnston's lack of understanding, that fighting Bierko is no less dangerous than working as cheap labor at the docks, and at least in the ring he knows where all the punches are coming from.
Cinderella Man should contend for several Oscars come next February and is another notch in the belts of both Crowe and Howard. The film never becomes a conventional boxing story or tries to generalize depression suffering. It stays true to its main character, a man who fights so he can have a say in his family's economic situation, allowing it to resonate with its audience throughout its entirety.
Four out of Four Stars