Six years into retirement, 42-year-old former world featherweight champion Willie Pep still has some fight in him.
With three ex-wives, one son, a father in the hospital, and money running out, he agrees to have a film crew follow him around to capture his planned return to the ring. What they find in Robert Kolodny’s clever and inventive faux documentary feature debut The Featherweight is the much more interesting story of a man unable to forget who he was as he tries to build a future he can’t imagine.
“I’m older now, so I’m always looking back,” Willie reveals. It’s 1964 and the boxer, played by James Madio, has settled in his old stomping grounds of Hartford, Connecticut where his impressive legacy (220 wins and 10 losses) carries more currency than his money in the bank (he earned $1.2 million over his career and spent $1.3 million, he cracks). He’s a glad-hander, armed with an arsenal of rehearsed anecdotes and creaky jokes. But sitting still isn’t his style, and Willie wants to prove he’s still got something to show in the ring, even as everyone else is moving on.
Business manager Bob Kaplan (Ron Livingston) is ever-patient, setting up depressing meet-and-greet sessions for his client while encouraging Willie to get a regular job, something the champ can’t fathom. Former trainer Bill Gore (Stephen Lang) tells Willie straight that any return to boxing is nonsense, and suggests that he take up shepherding young pugilists instead. Even his biggest fan, local sports reporter Bill Lee (Michael Siberry), has doubts about Willie’s plans, but won’t interfere, following him around for his next potential headline.
Stitching together the film’s grainy, analog “documentary” footage with manufactured newsreels, stock photography from the era, and strong vintage set and production design, The Featherweight succeeds in convincingly conveying the glamor Willie still longs for and the current reality he can’t face. The film’s metatextual quality — filtering a real story through a “documentary” performed by actors — bears the fingerprints of producer and editor Robert Greene whose own pictures (Kate Plays Christine, Bisbee ‘17, Procession) have employed similar conceits. And while the technique here doesn’t reveal any deeper thematic truths, Greene, working in conjunction with Kolodny and cinematographer Adam Kolodny, utilize the style to create a seamless and naturalistic experience, even with an ambitious structural bar to vault over.
Much of the film’s palpable intimacy can also be credited to the strong ensemble performances that find the cast as frequently addressing the camera as the those around them. Madio balances Willie’s midlife weariness with an everyman pluckiness and charm that powers him through his most desperate moments. Ruby Wolf, in her first major film role, delivers a standout turn as Willie’s much younger fourth wife Linda. She movingly conveys her gradual change from a seemingly vacuous, former hat check girl to a partner trying to step out from her husband’s shadow to water the tendrils of her own acting career. And Lang, perhaps best known for his recent roles in the Avatar and Don’t Breathe franchises, makes a strong case to be considered for more multifaceted parts with his wonderfully grizzled turn as the only man unafraid to tell Wille the hard truths he needs to hear.
The challenge with dreams isn’t that they might not be practical or never come true — it’s that pursuing them is usually a solitary journey. The screenplay by Steve Loff doesn’t judge Willie for wanting to resurrect his boxing career, even if his skills are long past their sell by date, but the filmmakers — within the film and outside of it — do pointedly present a man who centers his own foolish dream at the expense of everything else. Willie’s relationships with his wife, son, mother, and sister are the price he’s willing pay to return to the spotlight that has already shone on him instead of being the responsible and supportive nucleus of the life outside of the ring he’s created. The Featherweight concludes that even if you’re champion of the world, you can still be a grade A schmuck.
Director: Robert Kolodny
Screenplay: Steve Loff
Cast: James Madio, Ruby Wolf, Keir Gilchrist, Ron Livingston, Stephen Lang, Lawrence Gilliard Jr., Shari Albert, Imma Aiello
Producers: Michael Hampton, Jennifer Davisson, Abhayanand Singh, Bennett Elliott, Robert Greene, Asger Hussain, Steve James
Cinematography: Adam Kolodny
Production design: Sonia Foltarz
Costume design: Naomi Wolff Lachter
Editing: Robert Greene
Music: Retail Space
Sound: Max Cooke
Production companies: Appian Way (USA), Golden Ratio Films (USA), Pep Films (USA)
World sales: Cinetic Media
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Orrizonti)
In English, Italian
99 minutes
