We just saw The Fighter and enjoyed it immensely.
The How:
The film was gritty and shot without a slick feel of production that, maybe without realizing it, I've come to expect. This was clearly deliberate and it created a conscious effect of a dirty, uneducated, lower income environment which was a subtext for the movie's message and feel. There were times it almost felt like a documentary, which added to the sense of realism, and in my mind, this was a powerful and effective choice.
The acting was superlative and the folks getting kudos for this deserve the buzz. It opens with Christian Bale (who everyone knows has chameleon like acting chops) but it took exactly two seconds (before dialogue) to establish him as a twitchy, nervous, strung out guy with pretty serious issues. We've all met this manic, irritating, lovable guy at some point in real life, and he nailed it.
Also huge were Amy Adams and Mark Wahlberg. It was an interesting casting choice for Adams to play the blue collar, college drop out love interest - a pretty big departure from what I've seen her do before, but she seemed believable to me. If this had been the first thing she had done, I would have assumed she knew it from life experience. For Wahlberg, I enjoy his understated approach to his roles and it was perfect in this movie. He's a quiet hero with integrity and he gets to play the straight man that all of the other crazy people are bouncing off of the entire film. Without him, the dysfunctional family stuff is a Jerry Springer episode... with him at the center, it becomes a powerful, emotional piece of art.
The surrounding characters were also great, with their hair and the greek chorus of sniping dysfunctional comments. Even in their acting out a particular "type" they didn't seem two dimensional or contrived. In fact, the dialogue, acting and feel were almost too good, in the sense that this movie is stressful. If you've ever seen a family freak out (and who hasn't), it rings true and you're feeling it with them.
The What:
This is a movie about relationships. In all their complexity and dysfunction and warmth and goodness and need for boundaries. The suprising thing, and great thing about the movie was that Mickie (Wahlberg's character) doesn't do what we're silently yelling at him to do for most of the movie; to tell his crazy family to go away while he chases his dream.
When Bale was walking down the street with his cake, my beautiful date said, "this isn't going to be good" and I responded, "I don't know, maybe." I was envisioning everything from a true break from the addictive lifestyle of bad decisions, to a return to the drugs in force, to something horrible like a really dramatic suicide.
Can I just say, before we knew the outcome, it was a great moment?
I love not knowing what is going to happen next. What a great picture of real choice - and of real freedom - and we got to share it.
Perhaps even more powerful was the porch scene between Adams and Bale where humility, forgiveness, grace and a genuine request for second chances give us the heart of the film. The line, "I'm trying to build something here..." followed by the, "I am too." just resonated through the entire room.
What we realize is that all of the characters are, in some sense, The Fighter. Flawed, not having realized their potential, tired and somewhat bitter, they still press on in their own (sometimes weird) ways. The last speech that Bale gives to Wahlberg in the last fight scene juxtaposes the two, and when he goes back out, he isn't just fighting for the title.
He's fighting for his life and the hope that things don't have to end badly. He's fighting for a sense of purpose and redemption and love and meaning and a place where past mistakes don't finalize our lives. He's fighting for the part of us that dares to dream and that knows deep on the inside that we're capable of more. Definitely worth some oscar nods - and definitely worth seeing with someone you love and want to talk to afterwards with a tasty beverage.
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