The Fighter ☆☆☆☆

I'm slowly starting to suspect that David O'Russell may be some sort of genius. I watched Silver Linings Playbook (and gave it a rather good review here) back in November and adored the way he brought the difficult subject material of mental health to the screen in such a way that it is now much easier to talk about it - to identify with different members of the family that were portrayed.

The genius lies in the way he can bring actors out of themselves and truly become the character. He did it with Jennifer Lawrence (who is an astonishing talent anyway) and Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings, and he also achieved another amazing family in 2010's The Fighter.

Now the only reason I have not given this film a full five stars is because the subject matter - boxing - is not entirely my cup of tea so I'm not itching to watch it again. But it is most certainly brilliant.

The Fighter is the true story of boxer 'Irish' Micky Ward and his crack addicted brother, former boxer Dicky Ecklund, and their quest to make Micky a prize fighter.
It is half movie half documentary as it begins with the filming of Dicky and his 'comeback' by HBO - who are actually making a film about crack addiction. It follows the few ups and huge amount of downs faced by the Ward family, their dysfunction, and those who surround them as Micky tries to win fights while his family are at each others throats.

What this film really showcases, as Silver Linings does too, is family dysfunction and the bonds that are held by blood. In The Fighter Micky (played brilliantly by Mark Wahlberg) has to contend with a brother who is nine years older than himself and therefore an obvious childhood hero, but who has fallen so far off the pedestal with his addiction - a pedestal that their mother, Alice, has kept Dicky on.

The two Oscar winning performances in this film are thoroughly deserved - Christian Bale is just extraordinary as Dicky, going from crack addiction, through prison to coming out the other end a better man....? I'm not spoiling it for those who don't know the real story. But seriously his performance alone is worth watching this film for, and there are an abundance of reasons to watch this film.
Melissa Leo, now I had never heard of her until she swore upon receipt of her Oscar for this role, but blimey can she act. She was ABHORRENT as the mother/manager of Micky - you'll know what I mean, all the women in this family are excruciating at times. On the other hand she was a normal proud mother, someone who couldn't quite let go of her role in her boys lives and didn't want to be sidelined.

Amy Adams was nominated but did not win for her role as Micky's girlfriend, one of many catalysts in his life for taking steps to ensure he would be a real boxer and not just someone to be used to move other fighters up the tables. Adams' performance was great but out of her and Leo it was definitely Leo's to lose. Amy Adams always seemed to get the chirpy girl roles, even in the indie movies (Junebug, love that film) but here she is utterly believable as the waitress who wants her boyfriend to succeed even if it means taking a chunk out of one of his sisters.

The rest of the supporting cast are also fantastic, its as though the film really was a documentary of the lives of this huge family and their friends. Everyone in it is worth watching. Which is why I found it sad that Wahlberg didn't get at least a nomination for his performance.

Personally to me Jesse Eisenberg was playing an exaggerated version of himself in The Social Network so why did he get the nod where Wahlberg was snubbed? I don't know, its all personal taste I guess. All I know is that I'm not going to watch The Social Network again but I'll probably watch The Fighter.

At the end of the day, David O'Russell is a genius. He got me to enjoy a film about boxing which has happened only once before with Somebody Up There Likes Me - and that was because I am more than a little in love with the late great Paul Newman. He once more pushed Christian Bale's boundaries with health and fitness, and brought Melissa Leo to the forefront of great movie making.
This was just an utterly brilliant film, I definitely recommend it even if you think boxing is the last thing you want to watch. But this isn't a film about boxing really, it is about family, and David O'Russell has a gift when it comes to family.

Bel Ami ☆☆½

So I wanted to review this film because it has been getting a bit of lambasting by the critics and fellow Lovefilm subscribers, some of which is deserved but I feel like I need to stick up for it a bit.

Yes I said stick up for it even though I feel it is still half a star from being 'worth watching' in my rating system. Basically there are some fundamentals that are wrong with this film, namely the script and editing, but there are also positives.

So, like an evaluation of an employee we shall begin with a positive, move on to the negative, and round off with another positive.

Robert Pattinson's performance in this is really very good. The trouble is his smile is so genuine that it breaks out all over his face - not many actors can smile quite that wide, in fact I can only think of people such as Michael Palin whose smile lights up his face, but then that isn't in an acting capacity. So because I have seen him smile so genuinely in interviews and such, when I see him smile in this I am removed from the film and do not see Georges but Robert smiling on screen. Destroys the illusion somewhat.
Apart from the smile though, he does very well as the foolish young man determined to make money through screwing important women.

And this is where I begin with the negatives. The character of Georges was abhorrent. Truly, there was only a couple of times that I felt sorry for him but the rest? No, young man got much more than he deserved and if only he'd been grateful I might have connected with the character.
As for the women: Uma Thurman was fine but for the script and direction she was given; Kristen Scott Thomas is SO MUCH BETTER than the character she was lumped with who was stupid and obsessive; and Christina Ricci had a character that didn't make many good decisions but was by far the best of the three.

It did not surprise me to learn that the directors (two of them, generally bad news and probably why it wasn't quite so cohesive as it could have been) had only one or two previous film making credits which accounts for the uncertainty in places of where the story is going and how it is being framed. At first I thought it was going to be the memories of Pattinson as he contemplates how he came to be so miserable, and then it stopped referencing those dark moments and lost that thread completely.
I'm sure the book was salacious and riveting, indeed the French version of the film has almost two stars more than this one so perhaps something gets lost in translation. However the screen writer has been responsible for two episodes of Lark Rise to Candleford (a deathly boring series that started so well but then KEPT GOING) and her next credit is for the Inspector Morse spin off Lewis...hardly naked bodies in the bedroom fare which may be why Bel Ami wasn't quite so French as it should have been.

But to end on a positive then I would have easily turned this film off had it not been for the exchanges between Ricci and Pattinson. They had more chemistry than the other pairings and were much more enjoyable to watch. I really like Ricci, she and Elijah Wood have this youthful quality to both their appearance and acting but can still command the screen with emotion. I loved the game of tag that Pattinson plays with Ricci and her daughter because it felt like a genuine moment.

So yeah, it needed a LOT of work to make it worth a watch but, because I like Ricci and am always willing to let Pattinson show off better acting than frowning constantly with heavy white make-up, I don't regret my decision to watch Bel Ami. I just wish it had been better.