Cinderella Man
is no fantasy

Ron Howard lands a knockout punch

Working-class Americans of the last century’s Great Depression followed the prizefighting racket with something greater than just an idle sporting interest. The arena came to suggest a metaphor for struggle, with the implicit hope of watching an underdog rise to a triumphant state.
Such an emblematic figure was James J. Braddock, whose defeats and rallyings — generally forgotten with the passage of time — were as inspirational to two generations of Depression-walloped citizens as the mythical exploits of Paul Bunyan, John Henry, and Pecos Bill had been to their ancestors. Braddock was no myth, though.
Damon Runyon, that last century’s great chronicler of life among the downtrodden and defiant, dubbed Braddock “the Cinderella Man,” to invoke and invert another indelible myth. Braddock’s violent reversals of fortune, for good or ill, served to provide a glimmer of hope to those who saw in him the gumption that might lead to better days.
Cinderella Man is the name of Ron Howard’s new movie, which features Russell Crowe as Braddock. The film is heartily enacted, beautifully photographed, and unapologetically virile — and as rich in Depression-era authenticity as such a picture gets, complete with a palpable air of social decay and personalized despondency.
As director Howard’s darkest picture this side of The Missing (2003), Cinderella Man nonetheless manages to hit a crowd-pleasing pitch comparable with that of Gary Ross’ Seabiscuit (2003) — mainstream Hollywood’s last all-out attempt to recapture such a desperate stage of history.
Screenwriters Cliff Hollingsworth and Akiva Goldsman catch Braddock at the start of a hopeful career. Crowe inhabits the role so thoroughly as to invest his portrayal with a documentary realism.
The self-styled “Bulldog” from the docks of New Jersey backs up a fearsome right-fist wallop with a near-superhuman stamina, but a fracture of that crucial hand and the badly timed loss of a light-heavyweight match leave Braddock in impoverished limbo — right around the same time that Wall Street bites the dust in 1929. Braddock, too proud a family man to resort to bumming, nonetheless begs his former manager, Joe Gould (Paul Giamatti) for a shot at a comeback. The bout is a long shot, at that, with a puny $250 riding on the likelihood that Braddock will lose.
But the attempt proves workable, thanks to a newly perfected haymaker punch that Braddock hadn’t even known he had at his disposal. The stakes rise in short order, leading Braddock to a showdown with Max Baer (Craig Bierko), the world’s heavyweight champion — who by 1935 has killed two opponents in the ring. Howard’s slugfests are unflinchingly brutal, and fascinating to behold.
Howard out-performs even his characteristic attention to period detail, with striking contributions from such off-camera talents as production designer Wynn Thomas, costumer Daniel Orlandi, and cinematographer Salvatore Totino. The absorbed viewer is likely as not to feel the chill of winter in the hard-hit Braddock household. The prizefight settings, too — using Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens as a stand-in for the old Madison Square Garden Bowl — suggest the reek of ancient sweat and tobacco fumes and anxiety.
Crowe, in his most vividly realized performance since Howard’s A Beautiful Mind (2001), makes Braddock a smarter-than-he-looks lug who seems to welcome adversity as an excuse for strutting his stuff. Paul Giamatti (from Sideways and American Splendor) is similarly resilient. Giamatti recalls Jimmy Durante’s spunky portrayal of a similar character in a long-ago ringside movie called Palooka — adapted in 1934 from a newspaper comic strip that owed its on-the-spot inspiration to the adventures of the real Jim Braddock. Renée Zellweger transforms the under-written role of Braddock’s wife into a memorable supporting presence. Craig Bierko gives Max Baer a suitably formidable impersonation.
Thomas Newman’s elegant score, at once spirited and elegiac, avoids manipulative sentimentality but captures a heartfelt quality overall. The contributions add up to a smartly conceived, satisfyingly realized combination. (PG-13)