As you can tell from Paul's review of Creed, he is now thinking he would like to own this movie. Doesn't he know I'm trying to KonMari our home? I'm pretty sure that will be a life long process, but contemplating owning a movie in a Netflix-instant-streaming-media life seems like a serious commitment. I looked at the cover and read the description with subtle disappointment. Did this look like something I'd want to spend my precious Saturday night watching? Has anyone noticed our queue has not had one romance yet? I remembered watching Rocky on TV all the time and cringing at the end with how disfigured he is in the final match. So, as I'm hurriedly wiping off our kitchen table, I start to listen in on the movie and start to find it really interesting. I sat down to watch for a few minutes. Then I got up when it looked like it was going to be violent and did a few more house chores. When I came back it was more interesting dialog, so I sat down and was drawn into the story and had to see it to the end. Here are the main aspects that drew me into this film:Competitive Sports:
The sport of boxing has always seemed brute and weird to me, but as I watched this film they did an excellent job showing the competition, training, and skills involved in preparing a fighter for the ring. As I watched this film, I was remembering all the coaches I've met in gymnastics in my youth. And sometimes when you're not familiar with a sport and all its rules; the sport seems really odd. For example, I loved the feeling of my bare feet on a chalky beam in gymnastics. It felt great, but I sometimes watch the gymnasts now and marvel that they are doing death-defying stunts on a 4 inch piece of wood covered in suede! In the ballet documentary, First Position, I learned a competition tutu can cost, on average, $1500.
In boxing, it showed training for this level requires having a team working with you on different aspects of the sport. It's not as simple as a punch jab done. There are a lot of skills involved. I was surprised how well Rocky's character was a coach/mentor and pushed him where he needed it, but did so with encouragement and built his confidence! One interesting aspect was that although the young fighter had fight experience, he was a rookie in many ways. He needed to learn the lingo of how the sport worked in the professional level; especially negotiating deals. He was very green when it even came to "warming up" without your coach. It would be like a no-name gymnast coming into competitions at the Elite level and having the tenacity and skill to make up for lost time.
Father Figure:
The main character is lacking a Father figure (his Father died before he was born). According to the National Center for Fathering: "20 million children live in a home without a Father physically present." It was interesting to see him bond with his coach/mentor as a Father figure. Rocky is having some struggles with aging and this young energetic fighter comes along and as one of his colleagues says gets him to, "come out of the shadows." To his surprise, Rocky, starts to enjoy passing on his wisdom to this particular young man and it gives him more purpose and vigor to tackle his daily struggles. This made Paul and I both pause and reflect on how important it is to stay involved with young people. It's an enriching opportunity to invest your time into the next generation.Overall, I wasn't happy I stayed up so late to finish the film, but I gave this film 5 out of 5 stars and if you have a proper mindset I think it can be a date night movie as there is a little bit of a romance. It gave us a lot of conversation to talk about afterwards and it is a very redemptive uplifting story.
