OVP: Cinderella Man (2005)

Film: Cinderella Man (2005)
Stars: Russell Crowe, Renee Zellweger, Paul Giamatti, Bruce McGill, Craig Bierko
Director: Ron Howard
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Supporting Actor-Paul Giamatti, Makeup, Film Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Boxing has long been Oscar's favorite sport.  In many ways, it might be the only sport that Oscar really cares about.  After all, while AMPAS occasionally has dalliances with baseball, track, or basketball, it's boxing that they return to most frequently, and is the only genre that would normally be considered "Oscar-bait."  It's not hard to see why this is; the Academy loves stories about one person overcoming obstacles and achieving some sort of personal & professional triumph.  The boxing motif has been tried-and-true, used countless times from Rocky to Raging Bull to Million Dollar Baby with consistent success, but it also means that it's predictable, and frequently a snooze unless the filmmakers can find some way to spice up the action on screen with some artistry or compelling performances.  Sadly, Ron Howard is not a director who is good at letting artistic license best conformity & an old-school Hollywood story, and as a result Cinderella Man is what happens when you put some talented actors in a room and give them nothing unique to say or do.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is the true story of boxer James J. Braddock (Crowe), a man who was once considered an up-and-coming contender, who has fallen on hard times.  We're at the height of the depression, and he breaks his hand in the ring, depriving him of a chance to make a living, and in many ways nearly ruining his chances of even being a dockworker.  His wife Mae (Zellweger), seems relatively happy he's out of the sport even though she knows they need the money, as she's spent most of their marriage worried he'll kill himself in the ring.  They struggle, and have to move their kids out of their house because they can't afford to pay the bills or rent, but one day a random opportunity has Braddock taking on World Number 2 Corn Griffin (who needs practice before a big fight), and Braddock beats him, as the breaking of his right hand has made his left much stronger.  Soon Braddock has become a major contender in the ring again, and has a chance to take on the reigning heavyweight champion Max Baer (Bierko), but Mae is worried that Baer (who has supposedly killed two men in the ring) will do the same to her husband.  They fight, but ultimately he ends up in the bout against Baer, and in an upset wins the title away from Baer, getting to live happily-ever-after with Mae and their kids in a house he buys from the winnings.

The film is uplifting, and it's kind of fun to see Crowe & Zellweger, who have in the years since seen their stars completely disappear (despite being a modest hit, this feels like sort of the end of their short reigns as two of the biggest names in Tinseltown) be proper movie stars once more, but it's not very good.  The movie is too conventional and too long.  The lead actors are fine, but they don't rise above this material, and after both had won three Oscar nominations a piece in the six years prior to this movie, we know they can do better than just sturdy.  Howard crafts a handsome tale, but he doesn't have much heart, and neither of these actors distinguish their characters enough for us to care about them more than a middling movie.

The film won three Oscar nominations, including one for Best Supporting Actor Paul Giamatti.  If you re-watch George Clooney's Golden Globes acceptance speech from that year, he started it out with "I thought Paul Giamatti was gonna win."  Indeed, at the time it looked like it'd be a race between Giamatti & Clooney for this trophy (Giamatti would win the SAG), thanks in large part to the belief that Giamatti had been robbed the year before of an expected Oscar nomination for Sideways.  Watching this performance, though, Giamatti's work here feels a bit ancillary, and much the same schtick that he's been doing for the past fifteen years-a bombastic, larger-than-life guy infused with a masculine energy that feels like it's over-compensating to compete with his more famous male lead.  Giamatti's work here is easily forgettable, if pretty loud, and I'm thankful he didn't pick up a trophy for it.  We'll eventually get to the Oscar Viewing Project of 2005 (we'll be back into 2016's races in a few days), so I won't go too far in on Giamatti's work here, but I will say this is fine if they wanted to give a long-time character actor a random nomination (that happens with the supporting categories on occasion), but it's not groundbreaking or really rising above an already limited film.