Russell Crowe as Dutiful Man
By Josh Larsen
How, exactly, do you go about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps?
We get an inspiring demonstration of that old adage in Cinderella Man, an unusually forthright movie biography centering on Depression-era boxer Jim Braddock, whose dwindling career saw a surprising late resurgence when winning fights became necessary for putting bread on his family’s table.
Cliff Hollingsworth, with help from Akiva Goldsman and Gaby Mitchell, has written a can’t-miss narrative that smartly sticks to the facts. Just as the Great Depression settled over America, Braddock’s career hit the skids, with injuries and losses piling up insurmountably. Matches became scarce, and Braddock turned, like so many others, to scrounging for work wherever he could find it.
He managed to squeeze in a bout here and there, most of which featured him simply for nostalgia’s sake. Things changed, however, when he scored upset wins against John “Corn” Griffin and John Henry Lewis in 1934 (which brought Braddock not only headlines but also enough money to turn the electricity back on). More wins followed, until Braddock no longer had to get up to work on the docks early in the morning after fighting in the ring the night before. His career climaxed with a 1935 win over the heavily favored Max Baer for the heavyweight championship of the world.
Cinderella Man, which features Russell Crowe as Braddock and Renee Zellweger as his wife Mae, explores the motivation behind the boxer’s unlikely comeback. It’s pretty simple: “This time I know what I’m fighting for,” Braddock says at one point: “Milk.”
Director Ron Howard, who previously worked with Crowe on the Oscar-winning A Beautiful Mind, goes easy on the swelling background music and melodramatic plot contrivances that mark most inspirational movies. Like its hero, this picture operates with a sense of workmanlike necessity rather than gaudy flair.
Crowe is instrumental in pulling this off. Here as in his previous films, his nononsense demeanor repels falsity like a flak jacket. Crowe never lets Braddock become a sentimental figure, whether the fighter is reduced to begging from the fat cats who want to keep him out of the boxing ring or whether he is being showered with applause from everyday workingmen come to cheer for a fighter they consider one of their own.
Cinderella Man wears its period details well without overdosing on the burnished glow which filmmakers often over-apply to tales set in the past. Howard and his design team keep things just gritty enough to remind us of the economic strains of the era in which the picture is set. Even the boxing scenes—which filmmakers often use as excuses to show off—are straightforward and in sync with the narrative, especially an early bout in which an injured Braddock can barely stay on his feet.
During later fights, Howard uses quick cutaway shots to suggest how Braddock—known for his resilience—managed to take so many blows without keeling over. As he sways back and forth, reeling from a thunderous punch, we see quick images of his wife and kids in their cramped apartment. He experiences something akin to a man’s last thoughts, and he realizes going down will mean losing much more than one bout.
It is telling that Hollywood had to go to the past for a fact-based story of a man who takes punches and keeps getting up. Today’s trendy sense of entitlement encourages many to consider their welfare the responsibility of everyone but themselves. Charity and government aid—two essential forms of relief during the Depression—have come to be viewed less as a temporary balm than as a way of life.
Braddock, who received both private and public assistance during his family’s lowest moments, certainly didn’t see things that way. After winning a big fight later in the film, Braddock returns to the public aid office to repay the money he had been granted when he had nowhere else to turn. Whether that scene is fact or legend, it gets the movie’s point across: Hard work, not handouts, is the way to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
