THE BOXER
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Universal Pictures Director: Jim Sheridan Writer: Jim Sheridan, Terry George Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Emily Watson, Brian Cox. Ken Stott, Gerard McSorley, Eleanor Methven, Ciaran Fitzgerald, David McBlain, Damien Denny, Clayon Stewart, Kenneth Cranham
The troubles in Northern Ireland have been going since 1969, the term referring to the effort by Catholics living there, particularly by militant organizations like the Irish Republican Army, to force out the British troops whom they consider an army of occupation. As shown in Jim Sheridan's straightforward yet highly emotional and visceral movie "The Boxer," the city of Belfast looks bombed out, and what's more the hapless metropolis is separated into East and West districts by sandbags and checkpoints with British troops on patrol to check I.D. cards of those passing through. You wonder why the Catholics don't move to Ireland, the Protestants, perhaps, to London. Danny Flynn (Daniel Day-Lewis), the film's quietly intense hero, explains in his typically terse manner: This is my home. Not only does Danny choose not to move to London where he could pursue a promising career in the boxing ring: he returns from a British prison where he has served a fourteen-year sentence for IRA activities, and when he finds his flat sealed with stones, he takes a sledgehammer to the shelter and re-opens it for occupancy. Not that Danny has retained a dyed-in-the-wool yearning for the city of Belfast. He has returned from jail, from a sentence he could have avoided if he had only mentioned names of his co-conspirators, to reclaim the woman he romanced in his teen years and who remained in his mind throughout his incarceration.
With "The Boxer," Daniel Day-Lewis, an Oscar recipient from his role in "My Left Foot," is once again collaborating with his favorite director, Jim Sheridan, perhaps the most Irish of all filmmakers from a land actors, writers, and storytellers. This time Day-Lewis is teamed up with a marvelous English actress, the thirty-year-old Emily Watson, who turned in a magnificent performance as an eccentric Scottish 19-year-old in "Breaking the Waves," and the chemistry is palpable. As the unhappy wife of Danny's best friend who insists that her marriage was "over" before her son Liam was born, Maggie (Emily Watson) is herself in a kind of imprisonment. Since her husband--who was Danny's best friend--is now a political prisoner of the British, her activities are scrutinized by the whole community. Her Catholic neighbors, whether highly politicized or not, believe that any fooling around by women in her circumstances would demoralize them in their struggle against the Brits. The sexual tension between Danny and Maggie remains in the foreground of this complex film as Danny, who has barely uttered two words to his long-time sweetheart because of his emotional bottling up in prison, gradually warms up once again to Maggie while realizing that the two can barely touch without bringing on the condemnation of the neighbors, and even worse, severe punishment from the IRA.
Jim Sheridan succeeds in bringing home the torment of the people of Belfast who are surrounded by British soldiers, watched over by British helicopters, and kept under surveillance by their fellow Catholics in the IRA. Maggie's own father, Joe Hamill (Brian Cox), is the district leader of the organization. He must contend not only with Maggie's obvious attraction to Danny but with a hothead in his own organization, Harry (Gerard McSorley) who threatens to stoke the fires of hatred even as Joe is close to negotiating a peaceful end to the conflict with Britain. For her part Maggie must not only fend off the advances of the man to whom she is still mightily attracted but deal with her son, Liam (Ciaran Fitzgerald), a troubled lad who is convinced that his mom is about to leave him and run off with her teenage heartthrob.
Director Sheridan's sympathies appear to be with the peace faction of the IRA led by Joe and decidedly against the fanatical Harry, who is so opposed to any compromises with London that he singlehandedly reverses a peace process which is bringing opposing camps together. Using the sport of boxing as metaphor to bring home the conflicts faced on Europe's edge, Jim Sheridan and Terry George's script has its mellowed hero organize a gym to give the district kids something to do while simultaneously unifying the community by making his ring non-sectarian: Catholics and Protestants have been invited to box and to join as spectators and contestants together. In the movie's most surprising scene, Danny resorts to a tactic while boxing in London amid a crowd of upper-class British spectators which will bring to mind a surprisingly rebellious act in Tony Richardson's wonderful "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner."
Ultimately, "The Boxer" does not take sides between the British and the IRA, as such partisanship would not serve the cause of peace. Sheridan seems, however, to want the Catholics move forward and not be imprisoned--as both Maggie and Danny feel they are--by memories of the people who died for the cause, particularly for the ten imprisoned young men who starved themselves to death to call the world's attention to their country's plight. He is as sincere in bringing home the necessity for peace as is Kevin Costner in that actor-director's corny but equally unaffected epic, "The Postman." He succeeds in evoking audience sympathy not only by an honest screenplay which resorts to melodramatics only when clearly called for, but by superb ensemble performances highlighted by the suppressed romance of its principals. Daniel Day-Lewis once again shows his range as an overly controlled prizefighter whose most challenging struggle is in a continued pursuit of his romance with Maggie, while Emily Watson gives an endearing performance as a woman bound by her community's strictures, moving both toward and away from the man with whom she is still in love like a puppy exploring the trials of a new territory. The fight scenes are believable, if not particularly awe-inspiring while a broken-down area of Dublin serves well to depict the barbarous nature of Belfast's dilemma. Rated R. Running Time: 107 minutes. (C) 1997 Harvey Karten
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