Sometimes a movie can be a metaphysical experience - beyond the normal rules of the physical universe – not necessarily by design. “The Fighter” is a recent release starring Mark Wahlberg, a local area actor, based on a true life story about Micky Ward, a local area boxer. Scenes of the movie were filmed locally, in places that my family often spends time in, and were observed being filmed by some of our friends. We attended the movie in Lowell, MA, where the movie takes place - Donald, our boys, and my brother-in-law, Tom. It’s entirely possible that the streets and places we passed on the way to the theater are in the background of the film; or that, we may at some point in the past passed the film crew while they were in the area; or that; we’ve been for a bite to eat in some of the places where Micky Ward and/or any of his family and associates were hanging out.

 To wit: scenes in Lowell, where I used to teach – the old mills, the tenement houses, the recent Cambodian immigrants - all in the movie. The boxing scenes, I understand, were filmed at the Tsongas Arena, where my boys play hockey games.  One scene takes place at the Lowell Court House, where I served on a jury a couple years ago, an eerily familiar point of view.  In another scene, Micky takes his date out to a movie in Lexington, MA, because he’s embarrassed to be seen in Lowell after losing a fight:  main street - Mass. Ave. — where we park and shop; Michaelson’s, where we buy shoes; and the Lexington Flick, where Donald and I last saw a movie last month and where I left a scarf behind. 

 Within the movie is another movie, an HBO special about Micky’s brother, Dicky Eklund, and his crack cocaine addiction. Dicky, a former boxing champ who is also Micky’s trainer, previously fought the real Sugar Ray Leonard — who appears in a cameo – and may or may not have knocked him down.  The movie in the movie is shown first being filmed, with director and cameramen in tow; and later, appears on a TV screen in prison where Dicky and other inmates are watching it, until Dicky gets too upset with the scenes that refer to his son.  Presumably, there is a real HBO special, featuring the real Dicky Eklund, but in The Fighter, it’s Christian Bale who is on the small screen as well as the big screen.  With the trend of including trailers, excerpts and deleted scenes, The Fighter also includes a short interview with the two real life brothers at the end of the film, as well as a brief update of their lives. 

 I liked the movie, a lot.  Not so much the fighting scenes, which I hear are very good – I closed my eyes. But the story about family, and brothers, and the fighter who was not really a fighter – doing all he could to maintain peace in his family, and to please his mother and brother – and was not really a very good boxer until he learned to stand up to his family and others, who all thought they knew better than he did.  It’s the hyper-reality that niggles at me – why all this layer upon layer of fact and fiction? Partly, I know, it’s the age of voyeurism, i.e., looking into other people’s lives a la reality TV shows. But, I’m thinking there’s more to it than that – some kind of search for authenticity, when every image can be manipulated in so many ways. Maybe that accounts for the gritty, 50’s-era street scenes, and the people playing themselves in the movie, and even the blue-collar accents and profanities. The funny realization that although we can reinvent ourselves, through photography, cosmetic surgery, chat rooms and face book, it doesn’t mean much without stakes, without roots.  For the Fighter, Micky Ward, his dysfunctional family is his biggest liability, and nearly derails his career. But to make it as a champ without his family, the ones who know him genuinely, doesn’t really count.

Maybe that’s why the film crews keep returning to this area, because the feeling of town, community, clan hasn’t yet dissipated. Familiarity may breed contempt, but in the end, only the intimacy of shared lives and shared spaces can give real meaning to existence and real depth to emotions, including love.