‘Cinderella Man’

Above all filmmakers working today, Ron Howard has honed the old-fashioned craft of twanging the heartstrings.

By: Bob Brown

Russell Crowe stars as boxer James Braddock and Renée Zellweger plays Braddock’s wife in Cinderella Man.

   This story of a down-on-his- luck boxer who rises to become world heavyweight champ is so hokey that it has to be true. It’s straight from James J. Braddock’s life with little embellishment. No screenwriter today would get away with a fiction this sappy. Not since Sylvester Stallone saw the unheralded Chuck Wepner go 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali has there been such inspiration for a boxing movie.
   Besides Rocky, other models for the underdog sports hero are Chariots of Fire (running), Breaking Away (cycling) and, most recently, Seabiscuit (horseracing). Of these, the closest is Seabiscuit, which also portrays a hero who overcomes weaknesses to win the golden crown against heavy odds. And both heroes inspire working-class Americans mired in the Depression. Call this movie Seaboxer.
   Although Damon Runyon applied the sobriquet "Cinderella Man" to Braddock, Joe Nichols picked another for Braddocks’s New York Times obituary: "Plain Jim," a moniker coined by colleague John Kieran. Braddock was a patient, diffident fellow who, according to Nichols, "looked more like the old-time, friendly Irish cop on the beat than a prize fighter. His patient manner marked his everyday pose just as it did his way of going into the ring."
   He’s the kind of hero that appeals to a director like Ron Howard, himself a soft-spoken, patient man who admires underdogs of quiet strength and resilience. Together with his familiar team of producers Brian Grazer and Penny Marshall, as well as screenwriters Akiva Goldsman and Cliff Hollingsworth, Howard has created — what else? — a Ron Howard film. The best of the genre include A Beautiful Mind, which played creatively with the facts.
   What held that film together was Russell Crowe’s subtle performance as John Nash, a complex personality for any actor to portray. Howard turns again to Mr. Crowe for the role of a seemingly simpler model, Jimmy Braddock. The son of English immigrants scraping to get by, Jimmy is just an honest young man with a wife (Renée Zellweger) and kids, trying to make it as a boxer in the gyms of North Bergen. Joe Gould (Paul Giamatti) discovers him after an amateur bout and sees something he can develop.
   But after some success, Jimmy’s hopes dash when his weak left hand fails him. His string of losses thereafter lands him back in the Jersey tenements opposite the shining city. He barely scrapes by as a longshoreman on the docks of Hoboken and Weehauken. Forced to accept public assistance, he goes literally cap in hand to former fight promoters at Madison Square Garden to cadge just enough for his electric bill. Now he can bring his kids back home from relatives.
   Only a chance opening on a card for a heavyweight bout at the Garden returns Jimmy to the game. Gould, who supports Jimmy’s return, hocks his own possessions to give the fighter another chance and, eventually, a crack at the world heavyweight title held by the massive Max Baer (Craig Bierko).
   You can’t argue with the truth. And to judge by Braddock’s life, the film doesn’t need to touch it up. The guy was a saint and a determined fighter for his family. What saves the film in spite of its slide into sentimentality are performances and deft editing. Casting doesn’t often lift a film above a screenplay, but in this case it does. Crowe looks buff and lean, not muscle-bound (Jimmy Braddock was actually somewhat skinny by fighter standards). His performance is likewise quietly lean and strong, befitting the Plain Jim.
   The fight sequences, bloody and punchy, can make you squirm at times, but the violence is never gratuitous. All lead up to the major bout with Baer, an exhausting endurance test. Giamatti, who should have been recognized with an Oscar for his performance in Sideways, matches that here as Gould. He’s empathetic, but scheming when he needs to be, and hog-wild ringside, watching his fighter teeter on the edge of winning or losing.
   Zellweger gives a stock performance as a wife who doesn’t want her man in the fight game, but she’ll stand behind him, "the hero of North Bergen, the pride of New Jersey." Her ambivalence is in little evidence most of the time. This is not the kind of role Ms. Zellweger handles best.
   The parts of the film dealing with the Braddocks’ tenement life are the most manipulative and least satisfying. They harken back to films like Angela’s Ashes. Or better, In America, which starred Paddy Considine as an Irish immigrant scrambling to put food on the table for his young brood in Manhattan. Considine reappears here in a supporting role as Mike, Jimmy’s dockworker buddy. He is a hard-drinking, angry young man whose hotheadedness lands him in trouble. This is most likely a composite character and it feels the least "real" of the film’s portrayals.
   Once we return to Jimmy’s grab for the championship, the film is back on track. You get caught up in the thrills in spite of everything. Ron Howard’s film is not subtle. It’s uneven and it doesn’t reach for greatness. But above all filmmakers working today, Mr. Howard has honed the old-fashioned craft of twanging the heartstrings.
Rated PG-13. Contains intense boxing violence and some language.