Movie review: Journeyman (2017)

Journeyman reminds me the first Rocky movie. In that it's not really a boxing movie, it's a drama movie about people who happen to be affected by boxing. I tend to make the distinction based on what drives the drama. Rocky is mostly about a guy who likes a girl who works in a pet-store. Journeyman is mostly about a guy who has brain damage after a fight and how it effects the people in his life.

If that sounds like a fairly simple story, that's because it is. But as these things often go, it's the execution that really matters.

Paddy Considine stars as middleweight champion Matty Burton, who keeps his title in a pyrrhic victory against a young, rowdy black man – Andre 'The Future' Bryte (Anthony Welsh). Much like how it didn't matter who won the fight at the end of Rocky, it doesn't really matter that the main character has brain damage as the result of a fight. He could just as easily have been in a work accident in any number of professions. Or trying to break the world record for crushing watermelons with his head. But if not for the boxing garb, I wouldn't be covering it.

Britain doesn't have many as notches on its belt compared to America when it comes to boxing movies so it's welcome that this is one set elsewhere. But the setting is inconsequential to the events. It doesn't matter that this story is set in Sheffield. It could just as easily be set almost anywhere else in England, Europe, or the world.

That's not inherently a slight. It just means that the particulars of the story are so basic as to be universal. A man has lifechanging brain-damage and a woman, his woman, is left to pick up the pieces. Jodie Whittaker, who plays the supporting lead as Emma Burton, is the highlight of this movie. Both the main characters are sympathetic, but general audiences are more likely to relate to the care-giver than care-receiver. And that tendency will be reinforced by Whittaker's acting chops carrying her character's hardships and also every scene she's in.

This stress-test of "in sickness and in health" is where the most human moments shine through. Matty is not all there, and his team have evidently abandoned him, so it falls to Emma to run through the gamut of emotions. Love so strong that there's a fear of losing him to boxing, curiosity and bemusement at this now-strange man and his strange ways, fear when he lashes out, sadness and loneliness from yearning for who he once was. There's even time for intimacy.

In a small scene, Matty is going through physiotherapy and has to climb some stairs in the presence of nursing staff. He's struggling and Emma, unbeknownst to the nurses, helps Matty stay balanced. You and I know that's not a rational thing to do. But it's a great moment because we can empathise with why she feels compelled to act irrationally. If people were rational 100% of the time, movies would be boring.

The tension ratchets up in one great scene where Matty and Emma's baby daughter, Mia, won't stop crying much to Matty's chagrin. Emma, who was busy elsewhere in the house, comes to the living room to find Matty alone and undisturbed, with Mia nowhere in sight. Now, that's what I call drama. Who knows what this man is capable of? It's a damn good moment. And moments are where this movie earns its keep.

Sadly for both Matty and the audience, this moment is where Jodie Whittaker departs for most of the rest of the film. Matty makes his way to a nearby river and tries to depart from this mortal coil. In the water, the highlights of his life flash before his eyes. Not the fights, not the belt, not the boys. But his wedding day, his pregnant wife, his first-born child. Another simple message delivered in a strong way.

The weaker second half of the movie is about Matty's team coming back to help him on the road to recovery. It's not as strong as the first half of the film because of Jodie Whittaker's absence, but also because it retreads the same ground as the first half of the movie. He still goes to physical therapy. He still misses his father. He still goes to the same barber to get his hair cut. He still struggles to remember his daughter. And instead of wondering where his team is and when they'll come back, this time he misses his wife. You usually see scenes like this used to contrast something like pre-injury and post-injury, instead of all being post like they are here.

The record might be skipping but Considine squeezes in a few great scenes, like Matty having flashbacks to his last fight when doing padwork. There's also a mawkish conversation between Matty and Emma, as well as one more really good moment that I'm not going to tell you about. You'll never watch the movie if I tell you every good moment that happens. Give it a chance for the execution and you'll know there's something to look forward to if you do. This review will still be here waiting.

WARNING: HERE BE ENDING SPOILERS

WARNING: HERE BE ENDING SPOILERS

WARNING: HERE BE ENDING SPOILERS

WARNING: HERE BE ENDING SPOILERS

WARNING: HERE BE ENDING SPOILERS

I've already told you most of the plot. But 'knowing how it ends' carries some kind of finality. This review ends with me saying the movie's happy ending didn't sit right with me. Matty eventually gets better and at an evening reception in his honour, he gives a big movie-ending speech. He turns his attention to the young, rowdy black man whose punches gave him brain damage.

Where's Andre? Andre Bryte? There's him. The Future. I want to say to you, I don't blame you for what happened to me. I don't blame boxing. I love boxing. It made me who I am today. I'm glad this never happened to you. Because I don't want anybody... to go through what I've been through. Because it's been hard.

It left me feeling a bit deflated. There are boxers who have recovered from brain damage. But as a longtime boxing fan, I know there are many who never did and never will. Their struggles are acknowledged but then conveniently wrapped up. It doesn't seem right to fault the movie for choosing to look at the hopeful side of things. Emma and Matty's team already left him once, CTE develops in stages as you get older (and not for the better), is it dishonest to end on a feel-good moment where everyone is back in his life?

Journeyman is melodramatic. It's not particularly deep. But regardless of its flaws it made me feel feels and that's not something many modern movies accomplish. This might just be me but there are a lot of movies I like or consider big & clever that didn't move me like this straightforward movie did. Not everything has to be fancy and complex. Boxing sure as heck isn't. It's the ending and what comes next that are difficult.

Unlike Rocky, I don't think this is going to have any sequels or inspire people into becoming boxers/boxing fans.

Final Review Scores
In a word: Raw.
In a non sequitur: I couldn't stop thinking of Jerry Quarry
In a number: 7.85
In an emoji: 🦔
In a musical artist: Billy Joel

'Journeyman'
Written by, starring, and directed by Paddy Considine
Produced by Diarmid Scrimshaw
Production companies: Inflammable Films and Film4
Runtime: 01:32:28

BONUS! - Petty nitpicks and pontifications

• I felt conflicted over whether I was being too cynical about the "happy" ending. The 1947 boxing movie Body & Soul is fairly simple and has a happy ending too. But that's an old movie. Old media is supposed to be simple. They were made in a simpler times (allegedly). Modern movies are made in interesting times. So comedies can never win Best Picture. And an upbeat ending feels uneasy.
• The amount of raunchy scenes in movies are steadily disappearing. I blame the American puritanical mindset of "sex bad, violence good". Did this movie need to show a sex scene? Probably not. Did it appeal to the male gaze? I'll say!
• This might be the first boxing movie to show a woman bleeding after being struck by a man. I'm struggling to think of another and I've seen a whole bunch of these. Raging Bull showed Jake LaMotta abusing his wife but no blood.
  • Of course in this film, it's to show the dramatic change from the doting husband/father to the damaged man who has forgotten himself. She forgives him. No character has to tell us "he didn't mean it" or that "he wasn't himself". The audience will always reach that conclusion for him. This ready acceptance is dwelt on no further.
• Considine hit back at a critic suggesting he was "too old" to play the role and you know what? Good for him.
• I doubt they did it on purpose but the promoter at the start of the film is Francis Warren, son of Frank Warren, and the belt that Matty Burton wins is the WBO. The WBO gained a lot of its credibility from bending over for Warren's Queensberry Promotions and Bob Arum's Top Rank, resulting in the disparaging nicknames of "WBO - What Bob Orders" and "WBO - Warren Boxing Organisation".
• I have a few other reviews in the drafts but this is the first one where it hit me why I'm struggling to write these. The documentary and comic were about real events, I could get away with just comparing them to reality and substitute goods. Fictional media is a different kettle of fish.
  • It clicked when I was reading reviews for this film and a commenter under one said: "Thanks for spilling the whole plot you tool. It's supposed to be a review not a scene by scene summary."
• Listening to The House of Don King and watching TNT's Usyk-Fury broadcast have peaked my dislike of Steve Bunce, the number would've been 8.0 if I didn't have to see and hear him.
  • Gareth A. Davies's cameo is mercifully brief
• The padwork scene got me so good, man. Matty's PTSD flashbacks from punches flying his way leaves him cowering and raising his hands in fear, which the boxer hitting the pads takes as a cue to throw uppercuts. Fantastic stuff. It's a very soulful connection to make.
• Considine said in an interview that "it's not an anti-boxing film". As a boxing fan, I have to disagree. It's impossible to address the negative aspects of boxing without giving tacit (or in this case, explicit) credibility to anti-boxing sentiments. Same as French filmmaker François Truffaut's infamous views on anti-war films being impossible because "to show something is to ennoble it". I would argue that any direct acknowledgement of boxing's dangerous consequences is to directly disparage it. Every "realistic" film about boxing ends up being anti-boxing.
  • As easy as it is to say that that's just the sport of boxing, I'm sympathetic to the words of J. Tichy, a neurologist at Charles University in Prague, who wrote in 1997 that "boxing must be condemned as a harmful and unhealthy activity and as such not considered sport as long as blows to the head are permitted by the rules". You gotta hand it to him, he was spitting.
• In that same interview, Considine mentions that he screened the film for boxing people and their criticism was that Matt's cornermen and team wouldn't leave him IRL. I believe they truly believe that. When I was watching the film, I too had thoughts of "it probably wouldn't go down like that". But firstly, it's a fictional story so it can go down any which way. And secondly, it's wishful "I do believe in fairies" idealism that does not align with reality. If the boxing community truly cared for boxers, then there wouldn't be any struggling ex-boxers.