Brilliant

Rating: Null/10 (18 August 2007)

Let me start off by first saying this was a movie I had avoided seeing for a very long time. To be sure, I had heard many glowing reviews as well as some negative ones, but I'm not one to pay much attention to the opinions of movie critics; I would prefer to make up my own mind. As well, I'm not one to go for the "heartwarming sports story" type of film, as I find most of them to be unwatchable trash. So it was with much hesitation that I plucked this movie off the shelf and took it home for a look-see.
This movie possesses it's own quiet, understated beauty expressed a multitude of ways. The old-fashioned sepia tones used throughout lend an air of authenticity, evoking the atmosphere of the dirty thirties and suggesting the despair of the time. The dialogue of the characters comes across as very true to life to this viewer. I'm not talking about the dialogue being true to patterns of speech typical of depression era New Jersey. Rather, the interplay between different characters comes across as very real, much like what actual people in this situation would say and do.
Cinderella Man tells the story of James Braddock, a New Jersey boxer during the depression who, down on his luck, fights his way back into the ring after having his license revoked and finds himself scheduled to fight Max Baer, a man widely known as having killed two men in the ring. The daily struggle to survive waged by the Braddock family has taken it's toll on everyone, as it has with others in the neighborhood. James agrees to fight Baer out of financial desperation.
There are many memorable scenes in this film. However, the one which stands out in my mind has to be the one where James, determined to get his children back after farming them out because of an inability to provide for them, goes to the boxing commission to ask for money to turn the hydro back on. If ever there were doubts in my mind about Russell Crowe's ability as an actor, they disappeared as I watched him portray a husband and father forced to pack his pride and do the only thing which could be done to dig his family out of the pit they were in. Heartbreaking isn't a word I would normally use when describing a movie, but it's the only one I can think of to describe his growing awareness that he will have to risk his health and safety to put food on the table.
Renee Zellweger and Paul Giamatti provide support in their roles as Mae Braddock and Joe Gould, Braddock's manager, and both of them knock it out of the park, providing performances equal to Russell Crowe's.
If you haven't yet, watch this movie.