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I saw this film last night. You could do a lot worse than this film, very easily. I concur with everything Frederica says, and Gene Veith in World. Unlike Veith, I didn't find the minimal coarse language off-putting, but maybe I'm simply inured to far worse in other films.

I did have one reaction that surprised me. About half-way through the film (2 hr. 14 minutes), I had a kind of epiphany. I realized I was watching something that did not exist any longer. Yes, the setting is the 1930s, and yes, that was 75 years ago. But, it's not just the passage of years. Cultures have lives that far exceed the lives of those who live within them. The culture I was watching in the film is not the one in which I live today. Indeed, it's difficult to suppose they are even related in any way more than the mere succession of years.

For the first time that I can recall, I knew I was watching a culture that had passed away. I can't recall ever sensing this before. When Hollywood portrays a past era, it seems inevitably to squirt something anachronistic into it, usually in the form of modern values that would never have been around in that by-gone era, or if so, then not in the form in which they appear in the screenplay. This is why I hate Bible movies. No one can leave the background alone; it must always be updated, embellished from a modern point of view.

But Cinderella Man is different. It all hangs together. This or that scene, this or that plot device, this or that comment -- which would sound trite, or banal, or ridiculously pollyanna-ish in any modern setting -- they all fit together naturally in this film. I wasn't alive back then, but I know a lot of people who were, and what I've gleaned from them about that time validates what Ron Howard portrays in the film -- not just the characters, but the entire cultural matrix of the time.

And that is what I realized was utterly gone. Today is the brave new world.

You'll enjoy this film.

For the first time that I can recall, I knew I was watching a culture that had passed away. I can't recall ever sensing this before. When Hollywood portrays a past era, it seems inevitably to squirt something anachronistic into it, usually in the form of modern values that would never have been around in that by-gone era...But Cinderella Man is different. It all hangs together. This or that scene, this or that plot device, this or that comment -- which would sound trite, or banal, or ridiculously pollyanna-ish in any modern setting -- they all fit together naturally in this film.

Right!

My different but related reaction was that this film shows that the Greatest Generation "had the stuff." And it does it realistically.

We know for a historical fact that the Americans, despite being weakened by a depression, went out and defeated enemies that had buku strength and momentum. It wasn't luck.

That era is gone, but I am not convinced that its spirit is gone forever. Our postmodern way of looking at and talking about things tends to deny the reality of spirit. That is not only the fault of liberalism.