On the occasions that they donate some space to the medium, the New York Review of Books can be a source of pretty world-beating film criticism — and from some unexpected voices, at that. A few months ago, I featured Zadie Smith’s matchless essay on “The Social Network,” but if that film’s media ubiquity made it an obvious topic for an intellectual outsider, it’s a delightful surprise to see the venerable American Joyce Carol Oates (herself the author of pugilism tome “On Boxing”) taking on “The Fighter.”
Better yet, she addresses David O. Russell’s boxing biopic with more seriousness and sensitivity than many a well-versed film critic; the film opens today in the UK, and has been greeted by a disappointingly large number of polite but unenthused reviews, many of them carelessly citing a TV aesthetic.
Oates argues for “The Fighter” as a “directorial homage” of sorts to “Raging Bull,” but sees an elegiac conflict in an underdog story that more have likened to the straight-up feelgood storytelling of “Rocky.”