The_Mighty

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© Miramax.All Rights Reserved.

mighty7.jpg (9929 bytes)
© Miramax.All Rights Reserved

A person with a distorted, negative self-image cannot be talked out of his belief about who he is. Others who see the person’s good qualities can only support him as he discovers the truth for himself.

The Mighty is the story of two seriously handicapped teenage boys. Kevin’s medical condition has twisted his body and stunted his growth. He calls himself Freak, not out of self loathing but as a dare to those who see him as a freak. Max has a large solid body but his mind is slow because of his fears and the shadows of ugly memories. Other kids call him a "retard" and "Mute Boy." Max believes these taunts and is terrified by an even more troubling thought: The belief that he is just like his father, Killer Kain.

Some people can be real rough on others who are different. This is especially true of adolescents. Those that don’t fit in end up being the target for a lot of abuse from their peers. Both Kevin and Max are on the outside, one as a big target for kids who get their kicks from tormenting him because he will not defend himself, the other a bent oddity who, not only takes insults in stride, but mocks the insulters for their lack of imagination. From this description one could get the impression that The Mighty is a depressing, angry movie. It is not. It is uncompromisingly affirming and speaks of human resiliency while maintaining the highest ideals and an awareness that bad things happen. Even when events take a disturbing twist, The Mighty refuses to gloss over these and instead looks at them head on.

The relationship between these boys develops as most do, by chance. Kevin and his mother move next door to Max and his grandparents. The two adolescents are not automatically drawn to each other but become associated at school as their paths cross. Almost serendipitously they find that together they are able to compensate for what the other does not appear to have. Freak becomes a mind for Max, and Max the feet (and physical strength) that Kevin lacks. Freak is both idealistic and courageous. Literally on top of Max’s shoulders Freak encourages the bigger boy to stand up to dangerous situations and coaches him in these encounters. Even more, Freak challenges Max to use his imagination.

In teaching Max to read, Freak does more than help him form words with letters. He teach Max to close his eyes and imagine, to see the pictures in words and the pictures that a sentence creates. He introduces Max to wonder, the ability that allows us to transcend our situations, sets us free of the weight of life, enables us to dream, to see possibilities where none had been considered, and to see in the most common of things anything but the common. Practicing this ability propels Max’s real education and eventually allows him to do things he would never have considered possible.

Through the eyes of these two boys we see a hard modern world blur into a time of legend when the weak and defenseless were protected by the heroic Knights Of the Round Table who lived by a code of chivalry. Freak tells Max that "if you think hard enough, you can put yourself in their armor." Together they not only stand up to bullies but defend the vulnerable and brutalized. With Freak’s coaching, Max discovers that to believe in an ideal and to ordain oneself to be a living affirmation of that ideal is a powerful thing

One thing that Freak cannot help Max with is his friend’s belief that he is just like his father, Killer Kain. When Max sees an old picture of himself, his father, and his mother (taken before the man was sent to prison for killing Max’s mother), he is overwhelmed by the physical resemblance between himself and his father. He is sure that he is just like his father and will end up being bad. His grandmother tells him "You are nothing like him. You will never be like him. You have your mother’s heart." Max does not believe this and must follow his own course to discover the truth about himself. Encountering his father and seeing what the man is really like, Max finally realizes that he is not like his father and never will be. His father’s evil qualities are as foreign to Max as the positive properties the boy possesses, which had been blossoming under Freak’s tutelage, are to his father.

The Mighty affirms the reality that changing a twisted view of oneself is possible if one takes a chance, affiliates with someone who sees and believes in the person’s potential, and opens himself to different possibilities long enough so that repeated exposure to new experiences will have impact. A person must fight against the mind’s natural resistence to this and the resulting tendency to push away and fall back into a more familiar way of thinking and living. A person who hangs in will finally discover who he or she really is. Such a realization can often be brought home, as it was for Max, when one sees the difference between himself and a person who is the embodiment of what that person incorrectly thought he was.

Available from Buena Vista Home Video
Rated PG-13 by M.P.A.A.