“The Featherweight” Deftly Probes the Mores—and the Filmmaking—of a Bygone Era

“The Featherweight” plays it straight throughout; there are no winks to suggest distance, irony, or fabrication. Rather, it plays as an eerie time capsule, reproducing its chosen setting with an uncanny eye not just for material details but also for the ethos that underpins them, as embodied in the characters’ styles of self-presentation. The dramatic manner of the simulated documentary, the way its cinematic forms spotlight characters’ affects, is similarly uncanny, as if recovered by time machine from the period in question. The story is set mainly in Willie’s home town of Hartford, Connecticut, where he’s a local hero, but one whose star is dimming. Willie is slight (the weight limit for featherweights is a hundred and twenty-six pounds), springy on his feet, and fast-talking, as if smacking the air in sharply focussed verbal jabs.