B+

For a historical biopic, Ron Howard’s movie about champion heavyweight boxer Jim Braddock, a comeback legend of the 1930s played by Russell Crowe, is surprisingly accurate in most details. One might complain about the director’s style, which eschews a realistic depiction of the bleak economic circumstances of Depression-era America in favor of what might be called a glossy Norman Rockwell-tinged portrait of the period. One can also quibble with some of the characterizations–Max Baer, Braddock’s opponent in the title match, is, for instance, made a more arrogantly one-dimensional type than he seems actually to have been (although the actor chosen to play him, Craig Bierko, is physically right on). And of course one has to wonder whether Braddock was quite as endlessly nice and resolutely likable as he’s portrayed here (especially in the domestic scenes he plays with Rene Zellweger, as his wife, and their three kids, and in the locker-room banter he shares with Paul Giamatti as his long-time manger); this is a hero without so much as a blemish, which, given the Depression background and Howard’s nostalgia-drenched handling of the way common-man Braddock’s unlikely triumph bolstered the hopes of the economically downtrodden throughout the nation, makes the movie seem like a cross between “Rocky” and “Seabiscuit.” But overall the picture follows the chronology and events of the actual story quite closely, more than the last Howard-Crowe collaboration “A Beautiful Mind” did. That doesn’t necessarily mean that “Cinderella Man” is better than their Oscar-winner, but given the way Hollywood usually treats history, it’s a welcome relief.

As it happens, though, the picture is notable for more than just its fidelity to the record; true, it’s a grossly manipulative tale of an underdog who comes out on top, but one so skillfully manufactured that it effortlessly–and pleasurably–carries you along. Crowe exhibits the sort of magnetism that marks the real movie star as the big Irish guy for whom boxing is everything, even after injuries seem to have brought his career to a standstill and he has to resort to asking for handouts from his former acquaintances in the fight game and New Deal government aid to keep his family together and the electricity on in their dingy apartment. But Giamatti matches him beautifully as Joe Gould, the manager who nurtured Braddock’s early career and then got him the supposedly one-shot return match that launched the comeback that culminated in his amazing decision over Baer for the world heavyweight title in 1935. Using his good-natured weasel persona to fine effect, the “Sideways” star continues to impress as a character actor with leading-man charisma. Zellweger doesn’t have quite the same opportunity to blossom as her two male co-stars do, but she makes Mae, Braddock’s supportive but concerned wife an appropriately fragile figure who nonetheless possesses a steely streak beneath the delicate exterior. There’s a bit too much undisciplined energy to Paddy Considine’s turn as Mike Wilson, a fellow Jim meets while working on the docks whose anger at his economic misfortune makes him reckless and sometimes dangerous. The character is obviously meant to emphasize the misery of the situation that Braddock himself is trapped in before making his unlikely return to the ring (and the very different way that the hero reacts to it) but in this case some restraint would have helped. Bierko is similarly over-the-top as Baer, but here it’s justified by the script’s characterization of the champion as an over-confident Leviathan and womanizer–however inaccurate the portrait might be in fact.

These and the rest of the cast–including the inevitable Clint Howard in his obligatory cameo–are employed by Howard with his customary expertise; the director might be pretty shameless in his appeals to sentiment and crowd-pleasing tugs to the heartstrings, but having spent a good deal of his youth in mythical Mayberry, he’s obviously assimilated that whole small-town ethos and sense of familial loyalty and developed a prodigious technique for making them work for him on screen. He also proves adept once more in assembling a behind-the-scenes contingent to fashion an almost overly abundant period feel; Wynn Thomas’ production design, the art direction by Peter Grundy and Dan Yarhi, and Daniel Orlandi’s costumes are all richly evocative (if not grittily authentic), while Salvatore Totino’s lush widescreen cinematography adds another layer of sheen to the mix. And Thomas Newman’s score follows a similar pattern in being generally effective while storming the heavens a bit too insistently. Special credit has to be given to those responsible for the fight sequences, which are expertly staged (kudos not only to Howard, Crowe, Bierko and the other actor-boxers but to action choreographer Nick Powell and a stable of consultants and trainers) and edited (by Mike Hill and Dan Hanley).

“Cinderella Man”–a title adopted from Damon Runyon’s inspired description of Braddock–is a historical fairy-tale that obviously runs much the same track that “Seabiscuit” did a couple of years ago, except with a two-legged “Rocky”-type hero rather than a four-legged one. But while one can complain about its heart-on-sleeve emotional calculation (and, at two and a half hours, of its length), the fact remains that the rise-from-the-ashes career of James Braddock is a slice of Americana that Ron Howard serves up in almost irresistible form. And especially during the summer season, when theatre auditoriums are filled with explosion-laden blockbusters, cookie-cutter romantic comedies and shlocky horror flicks, a Hollywood film that focuses on recognizable human beings, however idealized they might be and however slickly their story is told, is like manna in the cinematic wilderness.