Review: The Fighter (2010)

* * *
Director: David O. Russell
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo

The Fighter is David O. Russell's most conventional film and the only feature length film he's directed that he didn't also have a hand in writing, which is perhaps why it doesn't quite have the passion of his previous efforts. I mean, sure, it gets the adrenaline pumping during its finale, but overall it's something of a detached effort. Luckily it's got four solid performances pushing it forward.

The Fighter tells the story of "Irish" Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), a welterweight boxer struggling to make his mark. As the story opens, however, the focus is on Ward's half-brother Dicky Ecklund (Christian Bale), a former boxer who is now the subject of a documentary about crack addiction. Dicky - "the pride of Lowell" thanks to having knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard once upon a time - has convinced himself that the film crew is detailing his comeback rather than his continuing descent, and he's more or less enabled by everyone in his life, particularly his mother, Alice (Melissa Leo). Since Dicky acts as his brother's trainer, his drug problem has some pretty major negative effects on Micky's career and after an altercation with police which results in one of Micky's hands being broken, Micky decides that he can no longer afford to maintain the professional side of their relationship.

Alice, who is fiercely supportive of Dicky, pressures Micky not to turn his back on his brother and, perhaps even more importantly, not to turn his back on her by cutting her lose as his manager. However, several other people in Micky's life - including his father (Jack McGee), his other trainer Mickey O'Keefe (played by the real O'Keefe), and his girlfriend Charlene (Amy Adams) - make him see the necessity of cutting Alice and Dicky, and the insanity that seems to follow in their wake, out of his career. This starts a veritable war over Micky, who understands that his mother and brother bring too much drama but ultimately still feels a great deal of loyalty to them. He's given an ultimatum but, in the end, gets to have his cake and eat it too as his mother and brother end up in his corner alongside his girlfriend, father and trainer.

The four principal actors are all very good and though I've read reviews in which Bale and Leo's performances are described as bordering on "cartoony," I have to disagree with that assessment. Just because a role seems showy, doesn't mean that there aren't people like that who exist in the real world. Personally, Bale's portrayal of Dicky reminded me a lot of a guy I know casually through my real job, so the performance rang with authenticity to me. Likewise, I have no doubt that Leo's portrayal of Alice could easily remind a viewer of someone they've known. Their characters have very forceful personalities, huge presences, but the performances are skilled and I don't think that either is overly-mannered or scenery chewing.

Bale and Leo have the most colorful roles (although the actresses playing Micky and Dicky's army of sisters are pretty colorful themselves), but the quieter performances from Wahlberg and Adams give the film its emotional resonance. Part of the problem that I had with The Fighter is that it kind of gives short shrift to Micky and, by extension, to Wahlberg. Micky is the story's official subject but the film consistently seems more interested in his brother, which is perhaps why one of the "big" moments - when Micky reveals his frustrations about living in Dicky's shadow, telling his mother, "I'm your son, too" - falls a bit flat. I mean, Micky is absolutely right but it seems like an afterthought given that the film itself is fascinated by Dicky at Micky's expense.

In the end, while I really liked the four performances of The Fighter, I found the film itself too unfocused and some of the conflicts (particularly that between Charlene and Micky's family) resolved a bit too tidily. It's a good movie, but it falls far short of greatness.

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Review: Frozen River (2008)

* * * *
Director: Courtney Hunt
Starring: Melissa Leo, Misty Upham

The difference between right and wrong is easy to discern when everything is fine, but when economic necessity paves the way for moral relativism, the waters become considerably murkier. So it is with writer/director Courtney Hunt’s debut film, which poses a different version of the old question “would you steal a loaf of bread to feed your family?” It’s an uncompromising look at the kind of poverty rarely explored in film.

We meet Ray (Melissa Leo) when she’s already at the breaking point. Her husband, Troy, is a gambler who has taken off with the money they were going to use to buy a double wide and get themselves and their two boys out of the rusting trailer they’ve been living in. She puts on a brave face, trying to hold it together for her kids and not let on that their father has disappeared, they may not get their home, and that Christmas – just days away – may be a non-event, but her elder son (Charlie McDermott) is aware that it's all gone wrong. He wants to get a job to help pay the bills, but she refuses to let him, insisting that he stay in school. Their relationship is a difficult one and he’s an angry young man. He’s angry about the lack of money and food in the house, angry that his father has abandoned them, angry because he believes that his mother drove his father away, angry because he’s 15 and burdened with too many responsibilities and angry because his mother continually reminds him that he’s not the grown up he’s come to think he is.

Driving by the bingo hall, Ray sees her husband’s car and later learns that it was abandoned at the bus station. Lila (Misty Upham), the woman who took the car, tells her that she knows someone who will give her two grand for the car and talks her into going into Canada across the frozen river running through the Mohawk reservation. All is not how it seems, however, and Ray finds herself smuggling illegal immigrants across the river in the trunk of her car. It’s a dangerous game but the money is good and, as Lila points out to her, she’s white and the local troopers won’t pull her over unless she gives them a reason. The two form an uneasy partnership and, despite their differences, come to realize that they’re more similar than they’d like to admit. Lila is a single mother as well, though her infant son has been taken from her by her mother-in-law, and living a similar hand-to-mouth existence. These are two women in desperate straits and their actions come not from greed or even the need to survive, but out of the need to provide for their children.

There’s a coldness to the film that comes not just from the starkness of the landscape, but also from the dispassionate eye that Hunt trains on her characters. Ray and Lila are flawed people, prone to violence and racism, but the film doesn’t make value judgments against them and instead tries simply to understand them. Ray rails against her husband for his gambling, but isn’t actually very different from him. Like a compulsive gambler who keeps letting it ride hoping for the big payday, Ray keeps going back across the river, courting more danger each time, putting her life and the future of her children at risk. For her part, Lila is ashamed of her poor eyesight and it drives her to turn to smuggling rather than accept a legitimate job on the reservation. She loves her son and wants the best for him and yet she continues to cross the river, risking that she’ll die the same way her husband did and leave the boy an orphan. The way that Hunt lays these characters and their lives bare is very effective and their story unfolds in a simple, but brutal, way.

Melissa Leo was nominated for Best Actress for this film and deservedly so. Hers is a performance completely devoid of vanity, open to the kind of ordinary desperation few stories or actors can be bothered with. There’s no “big scene” here, no big emotional blow-out, no show stopper; there’s just a great, quiet performance that is sustained from moment to moment, making everything seem undeniably and immediately real. Standing side-by-side with Leo, but less celebrated by awards, is Misty Upham, who matches Leo note for note as both her antagonist and, later, her partner. In a story as thoroughly driven by character as this one is, extraordinary performances are required – and this film has that in spades.