Fat City

Saw Fat City, a boxing film. It follows two main characters: Ernie, who is at the start of his career, and Tully, who is near the end of it. Neither of them are really going to be stars and whereas Tully is terrified of his future as nothing much, Ernie seems more at peace with it. This is a film for and about men. The most major female character is a gloriously boozy woman who is a kind of human alley-cat. She's a great character, winsome at first and then a terror as the honeymoon phase burns off. But for the most part, the film is about poor men who use up their bodies and sink into a ruined old age.

The film contains many great minor performances. In one scene Tully's coach tries to tell his assistants a story. They mostly ignore him and chat with each other as the coach becomes increasingly annoyed and keeps trying to tell the punchline of his story. It's so understated and charming, I just wanted to listen to the three of them banter forever which maybe they will just do. There's also the previously mentioned girlfriend of Tully's who shrieks and clowns around. There's other little scenes of just small people doing small things and amiably getting by.

The film is kind of a bummer ultimately, dealing as it does with the fear of retirement and of being used up by life (and therefore, by metaphor, with death.) But it features a soundtrack of mournful country songs and gentle soul, so I don't think it's meant to scare or shock you. By the end of the film Tully is beginning to accept his relatively miserable lot and maybe, we may think, he will stop his self-destructive drinking, maybe he'll move past the great bout where he was cheated out of victory. The film closes with the two men contemplating a withered old man serving coffee in a diner. "Maybe he's happy." Says Ernie. "Maybe we all are." says Tully.