We watch Micky navigate the family from hell.
The measure of this movie can be seen in the toll it takes on the audience. When
we aren't watching our hero being pummeled in the ring, we must watch him
navigate the ultimate family from hell; and the reason for this ordeal is that
Mark Wahlberg's central performance is so appealing that we in the audience
gradually become his protectors. We want this guy to be okay.
Micky (yes,
no e) is the younger brother of Dicky and the son of Alice - roles that nearly
lead to his undoing. Alice (Melissa Leo), you see, had nine children by two men.
Seven of these are adult women who are, without a single exception, indolent,
sloppy, and absolutely unredeemed. All are waiting for Micky to hit the big time
when he is expected to lift the entire family out of its poor circumstances in
Lowell, Mass.
Micky is the younger brother and last hope after older brother Dicky crashed and
burned following brief boxing success. Flushed with his new heroism, Dicky
became a crack head. So the failed, addled, drug addicted brother becomes
Micky's trainer while his mother settles in as his manager. Surviving this
brother and mother would challenge any man.
If by now you
are deciding against a trip to this movie, think again. David O. Russell's
direction is so good, so sure, that the chaos of the small time boxing world and
the bickering of the family literally become the soundtrack for the film.
Russell shows us that nothing in this family's past has touched them with even
the slightest bit of perception. Most never finished elementary school, and
none, it seems, has known the gift of a good teacher, a mentor, or family
encouragement.
For Alice,
her younger son is a tool for her own crazed ambition. She hasn't the faintest
grasp of her own maternal cruelty. Credit Melissa Leo with making us want to
drag Alice right off the screen by her hair. Russell's portrait of a mother's
favoritism for her more talented but wasted son is achingly tough to watch.
Christian Bale demands our attention throughout with his consistent, wild-eyed
portrayal of the son who lives on the inflated legend of his former success.
Amy Adams is
marvelous as she invests Micky's girlfriend Charlene with a toughness of spirit
born of her own roots in Lowell. And Mark Wahlberg gives his fighter an
emotional vulnerability that reaches out an wounds us all. He endows Micky with
a primal loyalty to family that works against him while Charlene with clear-eyed
love tries to put him in charge of himself.
The boxing
scenes are brutal with crowds hungering for the bloodshed that always comes. The
family scenes are nearly unendurable as an emotionally unconscious mother
cripples her young. Why go? Go to see especially fine performances by the three
leads and for the inspired conducting of all this confusion by director David O.
Russell.
Copyright (c) Illusion