Ryan McNeil
How long do you keep deceiving yourself? How long do you tell yourself that you are still young, still a contender…still in the fight despite a face that looks like hamburger and legs as sturdy as styrofoam?
Usually all it takes is a glance at the life that awaits you if you throw in the towel and quit. One glimpse of that, and you’ll lie to anyone to stay in the fight for just one more round.
THE FIGHTER is the story of Micky Ward (Mark Whalberg). Ward is a welterweight boxer who has never managed to become much more than a stepping stone: the sort of boxers true contenders fight to work up the ranks and build their confidence during a run at the title.
One look at Micky’s inner circle and you immediately understand how he is where he is. His trainer is his older brother Dick Eklund (Christian Bale). Dicky was once a true contender who even held his own against Sugar Ray Leonard. Nowadays, Dick is a crack addict and in no way dependable. He still understands the science of the sport, but doesn’t have the mental clarity to advise his brother on the fights he should and shouldn’t be taking.
Right next to Dicky is the Ward brothers’ mother Alice (Melissa Leo). She manages Micky, but always seems to be doing so with more focus on her cut than on her son’s career. That is if she’s really focused on Micky and not Dick. Get her talking for five minutes and its clear that she has a favorite son. What’s worse is that she seems so convinced that Dick is capable of a comeback, that she short-sells Micky and often turns a blind eye to Dick’s worsening drug habit.
If there’s a bright spot for Micky, it’s Charlene (Amy Adams), a bartender he falls in love with. She seems to have half a brain in her head, and is the beginnings of a real support system for Micky. This is a good thing, but people like Dick and Alice don’t take to change well…and they don’t see it as such a good thing.
What THE FIGHTER does well is make us confront the lies we tell to distract ourselves from the truth. Alice and Micky’s sisters claim to be his support system, but in truth they’re all doing little more than mooching off his hard work. They act like they want the best for him, and know the boxing business. The reality is that when opportunity presents itself, we begin to see that they are thinking foremost about themselves, and want to keep Micky in check.
Dicky has volumes of lies that he tells as a drug addict just to keep functional, just as all addicts have. These lies become a fuel for his pathetic track in life. Sadly, when he sees the documentary of his situation he is left with no lies to hide behind. Well, almost. In one of the film’s best scenes, he is confronted by Charlene about one of the biggest lies he continues to carry. However, being the fighter that he is, Dicky is able to trade punches and comes right back at Charlene with a lie of her own.
We armour ourselves with these perceptions…these skewed versions of what is really happening. Sometimes because we’re ashamed of the truth, sometimes because we’re afraid. It takes a certain degree of mettle to rise above them, a characteristic that Micky ultimately finds within himself. What’s best though, is that he doesn’t tap into it to better himself, but he uses it to push some tough love on his support system. He forces them all to “man up”. This makes them all find within themselves what it takes to be better: for Micky and for themselves.
That’s what makes Micky a true product of Lowell. These people might not have much, but they have their pride and they are deceptively demanding of each other. They’ll turn a blind eye, but only for so long. If you decide to make your stand, you’d better be able to back it up with results. If you can’t, one short walk through the breakfast diner will be all the reminder that you need that you have failed.
The funny thing is that I really shouldn’t love THE FIGHTER as much as I do. It’s unoriginal, it’s uneven, and it’s a boxing film where the boxing sequences aren’t given the same sort of visual craft a film like this usually gets.
However, the film finds an alchemy that either works with these lesser components, or distracts you from them altogether. Sure, Christian Bale might be playing the typical crack addicted older sibling disappointment…but he plays it with an honesty that we seldom get in this sort of story. The sunken shape of his face after so much weight loss zeroes our attention on his massive eyes, and they sell every syllable in a very real way. Whether he’s boastin’ or whether he’s beggin’, we believe him.
As for the ESPN-style boxing footage, it too creates an unexpected effect. The early 90’s TV look takes us out of the ring, and fortifies us in the audience with Dicky, Charlene, and Alice in Micky’s corner. We don’t feel the body blows, we can’t taste the sweat…but we’re not supposed to. It’s Micky’s fight, not ours – he’s even told us so.
We’re not supposed to be throwing jabs, or staying on our toes. We’re supposed to be yelling and cheering with hearts pounding. By keeping us outside of the action, the film makes sure we do just that.