FILM REVIEW: In Defense of Halle Berry’s “Bruised”—A Film Gift to Social Work and Our Clients

by SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD

     The long-anticipated film Bruised marks the directorial debut of Halle Berry, the first and so far only African American woman to win an Academy Award for best actress and one of the highest paid Hollywood talents. To both my surprise and dismay, before viewing her film, in which Berry plays the lead role, I heard only negative feedback from those who had seen it. Berry’s work was described primarily as a film with a limited, predictable plot. To test these negative waters, I did what I rarely do if writing about a film—I read a few reviews, which echoed parallel criticism, using descriptive words like “unsurprising,” “clichéd,” and a “slow motion spraying of blood.”

     After absorbing this negativity, I viewed Bruise. Had I not, the loss would have been mine. I completely disagree with negative feedback about this fine, inspiring work. Bruised is an excellent film, one social workers can use to highlight client discussions and introspection about the malignant impact of abuse if not faced, understood, and worked through. The more I think about this film, the deeper my respect and appreciation.  

     Because of hype, and title, I believe criticism came from those who expected the life of a down-and-out fighter on the MMA (mixed martial arts) circuit, and an examination of nail-biting fights on her road to finally achieving a successful knockout—in other words, a female Rocky. Or perhaps the expectation was an intricate, profound, and heartbreaking protagonist, as seen in Million Dollar Baby.

     But Bruised is not a film depicting success in the violent, life-threatening martial arts arena, or being destroyed by it. Instead, it is a family drama about surviving in the violent, unjust, and terrifying arena of life. The violence and harm we see inflicted in the ring is metaphor for the struggle to survive when violated in early years.

     Further, the film serves as a more expansive symbol—the struggle and torment faced in today’s surreal and uncertain times, where dysfunctional leaders in powerful positions in families, work-settings, communities, organizations, and society—best understood as “aging children,” bullies, or “chronological adults”—lie, scapegoat, abuse, and violate for purposes of power and control.

     Spoiler Alert: The plot of Bruised is framed, but the resolve of the film is not disclosed.

     In Bruised, Berry plays Jackie “Pretty Bull” Justice, a failed fighter, managed by her violent boyfriend Desi (Adan Canto). She lives in the slums of downtown Newark; she cleans houses; she drinks to numb her ever-present pain. Desi, inept, scheming, and violent, has purposely put Jackie in harm’s way by arranging a championship fight she was ill-equipped to deal with, which caused a crippling anxiety attack in public view (one that also replicated childhood terror) and her subsequent withdrawal from the ring.

     It is not clear if Jackie’s mother, Angel (Adriane Lenox), is a prostitute, but we learn that she regularly took men to her bed, and did not protect her young daughter from rape. Jackie’s entrenched pattern of violation continues in film, as it would in real life. We watch Desi force a sexual encounter. Although Jackie is clearly repulsed, she acquiesces and experiences release.

     The drama achieves dimension following a vicious, bloody exchange. Desi takes Jackie to an illegal underground match, hoping to sign a new fighter, a despicable woman who provokes Jackie into a brawl. Jackie headbutts her aggressor, rendering her unconscious, a resolve witnessed by a local promoter of an MMA league, Immaculate (Shamier Anderson). Immaculate recruits Jackie to his league to begin arduous training with two who will change her life in unanticipated ways—an intriguing, no-nonsense Bobbi Buddhakan Berroa (gifted English actor, Sheila Atim) and the wise, persistent, endearing Pops (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who becomes Jackie’s loyal father figure.  

     Jackie’s motivation for something more, something better, is awakened when Manny, her 6-year-old son she has not seen since infancy (the adorable Danny Boyd, Jr., with eyes that speak volumes), is literally dumped in her lap. Manny has not uttered a word since witnessing his father being killed at gunpoint.

     Screenwriter Rosenfarb’s original script focused on a 21-year-old white woman. As a result of Barry’s passionate interest, Rosenfarb reworked her script to reflect an older Black woman who “grew up with damage and survived with rage.” In episode after episode, Berry faces the camera devoid of makeup, her face bruised and battered, her eyes lifeless, her spirit broken. (But the camera adores Halle Berry. Her beauty cannot be diminished.) In direction, Berry offers precise, close-up camera angles of cast members, emphasizing their truths.

     What is also clear is that through Bruised, Halle Berry faces deeply rooted personal losses and demons. In interviews, Berry notes that the story of her protagonist, Jackie Justice, and her own are not one in the same—that she is not Jackie Justice. However, the film’s themes depicting the impact of trauma endured in formative years, with grave ramifications in generations that follow, are ones this gifted actress knows well. Raised entirely by her mom, a psychiatric nurse, Berry’s parents divorced when she was four years old. She has openly shared that her biological father (she has no relationship with him and does not know if he is living or dead) abused her mother continuously and viciously.  

     One of the criticisms of Bruised is that the film is pure melodrama—an exaggeration of suffering, offered in both script and shooting. Again, I disagree. Battered women and the social workers and domestic abuse counselors who know them well can attest that the pain and diminishment caused by physical, sexual, and emotional abuse cannot possibly be exaggerated. Further, the realities that must be faced to leave these patterns behind can never be overstated. In script, in acting portrayal, and in close-up excellence of camera, Halle Barry succeeds. Her brave truths are healing gifts to those we are privileged to work with.

     “Betsy,” my 16-year-old client, now in foster care, whose biological parents forced her into a sexual relationship beginning as a six-year-old’s “birthday present,” saw Bruised with her therapy group and me. Betsy’s words are far better than mine: “Halle Berry is one gutsy, determined adult. Her Jackie has helped me see direction and hold on to hope for my future. I am very grateful. Jackie will stay with me.”

SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD, whose private and pro bono clinical social work practice is in Philadelphia, is a certified group psychotherapist and family life educator. She is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award (2004) and the Social Worker of the Year (2018) from the Pennsylvania chapter of NASW, and the 2013 NASW Media Award for Best Article. In 2018, she was one of five graduates of the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice selected for the school’s inaugural Hall of Fame. SaraKay is the author of Burnout and Self-Care in Social Work (2nd Edition).