I think we movie lovers probably have seen stories about a person’s struggle to get his life back a lot. With Southpaw (2015), it’s a story about Billy Hope (Jake Gylenhaal), a winning boxer who sink his life after his wife, Maureen (Rachel McAdams) passed away. He’s in debt and he lost his daughter to child service. He must get back to his old neighborhood and clean the gym as his job, while waiting to get his child custody back.
You probably can read the plot after that. But what’s interesting is that Southpaw is based on the rapper, Eminem’s life. Eminem originally cast as Billy Hope, but he turned it down because he’s focusing on his music. But Eminem contributed the soundtrack. Southpaw‘s soundtrack also the last movie to be composed by James Horner. The title Southpaw is based on one of boxer’s boxing strategy, a normal stance for left-handed boxer.
Every people, like myself, saw Southpaw‘s preview and want to watch it because we saw Jake Gylenhaal transformed as this raging boxer. This is an interesting character after seeing Gylenhaal played a mental camera person in Nightcrawler (2014). I think we know that he would conquer the role. There’s this fire in Gylenhaal that gets bigger in every movie he starred in today, it won’t be a surprised if he would win Oscar one day (he gets nominated though for Nightcrawler).
“Billy Hope knows how to take a punch, but he also drops bombs.”
Best heartbreaking moment for me was when his daughter, Leila (Oona Laurence) hits him mad and he just let her hit him with guilty silence. Such contrast to him up in the ring where he’s the easily emotional scary boxer. Oona Laurence also gets a big credit for a strong performance for a new and young actress. Her chemistry with Gylenhaal was great. Realizing how Gylenhaal is actually not a father yet, their heartbreaking moment together was awesome.
It seems to be a common characteristic among boxers to be easily caught up in rage. Since their work deal with fights and jabs, they can easily channel their anger through their work. But still, leaving our actions to our emotions often lead us to hazard. For boxers, they still need to control their mind and like athletes, also need winning strategy. As for Billy Hope, his anger is located in his wife’s death. It is also what trigger Maureen’s shooting.
It was like seeing a fantasy family when Maureen still alive early in the movie, as she’s the pretty and motherly wife who handled her man and family wisely. It is a portrayal of how unbalanced a family could be without a wife who takes care of everything, including life directions. It’s a note for husbands to take control in family, instead if being taken care of most of the time. But it was really about Billy Hope’s ability to conquer his mind and emotions through out the movie.
If you like boxing (or not), the climax fight should be an exciting show, as Billy’s contender is his the guy who had to do with his wife’s death. Also starring the movie is 50 cent as Hope’s early big-bucks-oriented manager. Southpaw is definitely one of the good movie to watch out in 2015.
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