Is this the most authen­tic box­ing movie ever made?

Box­ing films remain as pop­u­lar as ever – arguably more so than the sport itself – but in 45 years none has matched the poet­ry of John Huston’s Fat City. A lit­tle seen and vast­ly under­rat­ed skid row dra­ma, the film nim­bly eschews con­ven­tion, side­step­ping almost every nar­ra­tive beat asso­ci­at­ed with the box­ing genre. This is not a straight­for­ward under­dog sto­ry but rather a sen­si­tive look at medi­oc­rity and mis­for­tune. A New Hol­ly­wood bruis­er soaked in blood, sweat and booze.

Bil­ly Tul­ly (Sta­cy Keach) is an alco­holic labour­er approach­ing mid­dle age with noth­ing to his name but the unful­filled promise of glo­ry in the ring. When he meets young box­er Ernie (Jeff Bridges, in one of his first roles), he is inspired to men­tor the kid and get back into train­ing, per­haps for one more chance to become a champion.

Plucky young novice, hard­ened men­tor, a shot at redemp­tion – so far, so famil­iar. But the sto­ry of Fat City, which Hus­ton chose to adapt for its sim­i­lar­i­ty to his own box­ing expe­ri­ence, takes an uncom­mon­ly real­is­tic look at what it means to go for great­ness. Tul­ly makes a sin­cere promise to get back into shape, but his cir­cle of friends, cir­cum­stances and dimin­ished self-belief pre­vents him from sus­tain­ing any momen­tum. There are no trans­for­ma­tive train­ing mon­tages here, only the dai­ly grind that slow­ly chips away at his con­fi­dence and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of redemption.

While he may be pathet­ic, Tul­ly is sym­pa­thet­ic in his earnest­ness. His swings between hope and despair are shaped by an incon­sis­tent, pre­car­i­ous sobri­ety that’s often at odds with the social life that sus­tains him. When his fight­ers lose, he is quick to offer con­so­la­tion and excus­es, ply­ing them with beer and plat­i­tudes. In a world that demands a degree of ruth­less­ness to suc­ceed, per­haps he’s too for­giv­ing. His ambi­tion is not matched by dis­ci­pline, so it nev­er becomes more than a pipe dream. If becom­ing a cham­pi­on is a one in a mil­lion shot, then Fat City is a film for all those oth­er guys who quite don’t have what it takes.

This unro­man­tic view of box­ing is best illus­trat­ed by a scene in which two age­ing coach­es crit­i­cise their young pro­tégés for aban­don­ing the sport, and then list the injuries they have accu­mu­lat­ed through their own com­mit­ment while qui­et­ly recog­nis­ing how lit­tle they have received in return. Under­neath their mas­cu­line brava­do is the fear of wak­ing up one day to realise that they’ve become the cau­tion­ary tale – the guy who has grown old fast and is dying slow.

Keach is won­der­ful­ly cast, a lum­ber­ing pres­ence with bulk that could go either way to cor­pu­lence or brawn. He has a look of mis­chief in his eyes rem­i­nis­cent of Jack Nichol­son, but it’s been dulled by drink and suc­ces­sive blows to the head. He meets the sim­i­lar­ly way­ward Oma, a can­tan­ker­ous but charm­ing barstool philoso­pher, and the two become lovers through their shared bur­den of hard­ship and love of alco­hol. Oma offers Tul­ly com­pan­ion­ship but is threat­ened by his return to form, as the demands of suc­cess could be too much to bear.

As Oma, Susan Tyrrell deliv­ers one of cinema’s great­est drunk per­for­mances. Her face is con­stant­ly strained from weep­ing as she bemoans the cav­al­cade of injus­tices deliv­ered upon her by men. Her voice is a husky, minor-key monot­o­ne, at once shrill and beguil­ing, main­tain­ing its clar­i­ty even in the midst of a scream­ing con­test. It’s a riv­et­ing, auda­cious and slight­ly ter­ri­fy­ing performance.

Like any box­ing film, Fat City ends with a cli­mac­tic fight that offers the hero either a chance for tri­umph or a path to the gut­ter. But the fight itself is sad rather than exhil­a­rat­ing, as the fight­ers – both in poor health – repeat­ed­ly fall into each oth­er in exhaus­tion. There’s no vic­to­ry to be had, not for the los­er, omi­nous­ly head­ing towards a much wors­ened ill­ness, nor the win­ner, who comes away with only a lit­tle cash and a lot of pain.

Though it presents a direct, unvar­nished look at depres­sion and alco­holism, Fat City doesn’t share the coarse grit of social real­ist cin­e­ma. This is gra­cious, soul­ful film­mak­ing, sen­ti­men­tal but can­did and not with­out humour, attuned to a mas­cu­line atti­tude of tough­ness that weath­ers life’s joys as well as its tri­als. It’s a film about the peo­ple who don’t go any­where, for whom hope, while it may be use­less, is absolute­ly nec­es­sary. Sure, life may give you a hell of a beat­ing, but you still stay on your feet to see out the clock.