Rocky

Rocky holds up extraordinarily well.

If you haven’t seen Rocky in a while, you may recall it as a boxing movie.  It’s much more than that, however: it’s the American dream in an hour and a half.  It’s a story about a guy gets his shot and makes the most of it.  It’s a story about compassion, perseverance, and character.  It’s story about finding one’s lodestone.  It’s brilliant.

You know how it goes: Rocky, a semi-pro boxer, works as a small-time collector for a small-time loan shark in hard-times Philadelphia.  Rocky isn’t a very good collector because he lets people off the hook.  He isn’t a very good boxer because nobody has ever taken him under wing and given him the training he needs.  He isn’t good at much, but he is good hearted.  When champion Apollo Creed needs to find a last-minute substitute for an injured opponent, he hits on the idea of fighting a Philadelphian for the bicentennial.  He chooses Rocky based on a one-paragraph description in a boxing digest and offers him the gig.  Rocky thinks he’s being offered a job as a sparring partner.  When he learns that this is a real shot, he takes it.  Cue the training montage.

And it’s great and it’s fabulous and it’ll make your four-year-old try to do one-armed pushups.  But there’s something happening in Rocky to set it apart from other sports fantasy movies.  First, there’s Rocky’s budding relationship with Adrian, the mousy spinster who works at the local pet shop.  Adrian isn’t the beautiful girlfriend of an evil opponent.  Adrian is a delicate shoot whom Rocky cultivates into a magnificent flower, just as Rocky cultivates his opportunity to do something with his life.  Second, there’s Apollo Creed, the Champ.  Apollo isn’t a cruel villain from Conflict 101.  He’s decent and smart and dedicated.  Sure, he treats Rocky lightly – who wouldn’t, in his position?  But the fact that he isn’t a moustache twirler makes Rocky’s story one about overcoming life’s restrictions, not overcoming one man.  Third, there’s Philadelphia itself, a mighty and historic city whose days of industrial-age dominance are long behind it.  We identify not only with underdog Rocky, but with underdog Philly.  It dreams of something better, and perhaps it can make its dreams come true.

These elements work together to make Rocky more than just another aspirational story about an underdog fighting a villain and getting a girl.  They make Rocky universal and inspirational, giving it a power that transcends its era.  The make Rocky about the American dream of finding something within oneself that extends one’s reach, firms one grip, makes the impossible possible.  Rocky isn’t just a boxing movie.  Rocky is a classic.