While the movie Cinderella Man takes place in the Great Depression, it’s more about James Braddock and how he overcame his struggle with the hardships. The movie is heartfelt and you feel more of a connection with James Braddock than focusing on the Great Depression time era. While it does show us how it was hard during that time period, it shows more of James Braddock and his fairytale ending.
James Braddock had a string of bad luck in this time of his life. First being hit with the stock market crash, losing most of his money that way, breaking his hand, which lead to having his boxing license revoked. While the Great Depression went on, so did James Braddock, who worked hours upon hours at the docks just to put food on the table for his family. Cinderella had to do much of the same thing. While Cinderella had the support of few, James still had a fan base, friends, children, and his wife to help him. During the movie, you see James struggle constantly with sending his children away and having to live with not being able to support the household. While he made a promise to his kids, his wife goes being his back and sends them away. James mans up and goes out and asks for help from his fellow coworkers which can hurt a mans pride in these situations. These things that James does to help is family is what makes this movie more of a fairytale then spreading facts about the time period.
The movie captures your attention by the story of James Braddock but not about the time period. The Great Depression is more of background noise than anything else. If this would have happened in the 1940s or 1950s it wouldn't have been been as big of a deal. While touching on the subject of hardships, the director chose to show more of the story of James since that’s what the purpose of the movie is about. If the movie focused more on the Great Depression and how hard it was for James to take control of his life again, it most likely wouldn’t have been as successful.
Successful movies a lot of the time have action in it, even if its stretching the truth. Cinderella Man did end up doing that to one of its characters.
While making the story about James Braddock and his “Cinderella ending” they had to make some of the characters less appealing and more aggressive. Max Baer was one of the victims that fell into the category. To make the story more of a Cinderella, they had to make someone the antagonist. While the Great Depression was already a main problem, they needed a human. Max Baer, probably a nice guy, was portrayed as a heartless, egotistical man, who was out for blood. The director did this for the sake of the movie. This makes James Braddock a weak guy compared to Max. Max Baer was only doing the same this as James Braddock, he was just more aggressive in his style of fighting and that made him an easy target to become the bad guy. They also made the Star of David, on Max's shorts, less noticeable because Jews are more prone to fall victim to being called weak and they could;t have Max being that. They needed Max to be mean and cruel so James could have the spotlight of being the weak one and being the underdog. Cinderella has her evil stepmom and stepsisters, James had to have his own, which was Max. And it wouldn’t be a Cinderella story without having a fairy god mother, which was James’s manager, Joe. He got James the fight and he believed in him. Joe made James Braddock into Cinderella.
While James Braddock got his fairytale ending, it wasn't just at the expense of losing a job, it was his life. Without becoming Cinderella in a sense, who knows what would have happened to both him and his family. He fought for control over his life and he won. James Braddock in this movie, teaches everyone that you just have to keep trying and fighting until you win. If you give up, like James Braddock could have done after he broke his hand, he wouldn’t have gone on to win the Heavyweight Championship and defeat Max Baer. The things that James goes onto do makes this story Cinderella and keeps inspiring people to fight for want. 
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