The "Rocky" of its generation

Rating: 9/10 (2 January 2011)

I went into this film expecting it to be more about the performances than about the plot. I left this film expecting it to be the top contender for a Best Picture Oscar.
A lot has been written about the performances in this film, so I won't spend long on that. The two performances that stand out for me are Melissa Leo as Alice and Christian Bale as Dicky. Both powerhouse performances deserving Oscar nods, if not wins.
The thing that separates this film from other underdog sports films is that it delves into the character's strained relationships with his mother and brother and the writers and actors were not afraid of making those two latter characters gritty, real, and not wholly likable. This movie's biggest strength was how real it felt. How many of us have strained relationships within our family? How many of us have that one relative (or more), that just keeps bringing us down in life, but whom we have a hard time separating ourselves from out of family loyalties? I do not know if the crew went to the real neighborhood that Micky Ward grew up in or if they filmed elsewhere, but the set locations that were chosen were just as pivotal to the story as the performances. They help to establish and remind us that the Micky Ward we meet is by no means a rich man financially, while allowing the story more time to focus on the fact that he is also not a rich man in any other sense of the word. A beautiful house in suburbia where Ward's ex-wife lives is in stark contrast to the upstairs apartment in which he lives. A crack house, just down the street from what looks to be a church...wow! What a powerful image.
I wouldn't call this a light-hearted drama at all, but it did have some unexpected laughs...my favorite one involving an intercom.
There were few flaws in this film, but the biggest ones I found involved the sisters . The sisters were a creepy lot (some of the them looked older than their mother, which added to the creepiness factor), and not well cast. Even in smaller supporting roles, a well-cast part can make a difference. I don't think it is going out on a limb in saying that I believe some of the sisters were locals and not professional actors. I know I recognized at least one from Gone Baby Gone and her acting didn't impress me in that film, either, being more a distraction in the scenes she appeared in than a help. The sisters did have their funny moments, needless to say, but I actually thought the film wouldn't have suffered if he had had fewer of them around in the film (no offense to any of Micky's real sisters).
All in all, though, as I say in my summary title, I think this film is this generation's Rocky, just with a spunkier version of Adrian and a bit more realism and dysfunction thrown in.