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The film’s director Clint Eastwood has probably had one of the most remarkable careers Hollywood has ever seen.  Beginning with entertaining and adventurous spaghetti westerns like A Fistful of Dollars, and then graduating to Dirty Harry, Eastwood was already a superstar in the seventies.  In the nineties he was a favorite at the Oscars and won a directing Oscar for his film Unforgiven, which also won Best Picture that year.  With Million Dollar Baby, Eastwood has pleased Hollywood once again, and won Best Director, while his film got Best Picture.  He now stands with the elite, like David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia and Bridge on the River Kwai) and Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather part one and two), directing multiple films that have won Best Picture.  However, both of the previous directors deserved their two Best Pictures, where I think Eastwood deserved his for Unforgiven, not Million Dollar Baby.  

Hillary Swank, as Maggie Fitzgerald, powerfully delivers as an over-age woman who longs to box professionally.  She upholds such a perfect mix of spunk and calm respect for her trainer, Frankie Dunn (Eastwood), that one cannot help but love her character.  While Eastwood excels behind the camera on this film, in front of it he seems a tad unnatural, and at times, his voice seems exaggeratedly coarse and aberrant.  Morgan Freeman, however, faultlessly plays the role of Frankie’s friend, who, at times, helps Maggie out when Frankie feels like he has helped a woman trying to excel in a man’s world too much.

The most enjoyable part of the film is watching the ongoing relationship between Maggie and Frank.  At first, Frank completely abhors the idea of teaching a 33-year-old woman to box.  He predictably and gradually gives in, however, and from there, the two of them enjoy a liaison from which they both learn and grow.  Frank eventually becomes so close to Maggie that they work just as a loving father and daughter would.  In one of the finest moments in the film, Frank makes a cape for an overjoyed Maggie to wear when she runs into the ring.  However, near the end of the film, Maggie is punched during a match and before anybody can do anything, falls on a stool in the ring, and becomes paralyzed.  The film enters into an entirely different territory after this that focuses primarily on the question of whether it is better to keep living in a paralyzed condition or die.  The problem with this is it abruptly changes moods and becomes a completely different type of film without any warning.  Some see this as a good thing, like a first-rate plot twist, but this is not film noir, and just because something happens that surprises us, it is not always a good move on the film’s part!  It abruptly abandons one theme, and goes to another.  This reviewer would not mind this type of change if the film were based on an actual person’s life, but this story seems contrived and created for its ending only.  Eastwood ends up letting the girl die, and in the very last scene, we see him in his favorite roadside restaurant, silently eating his favorite pie.  The film primarily builds the character up to the point where it is impossible not to like them, and then lets them die.  This reviewer is not asking that the issue of euthanasia not be brought up in films; it just could have been done with more class (think of the death penalty in Dead Man Walking).  

It is a sad thing that an enjoyable and well-made movie had to conclude in such an awkward and even manipulative way.  Most critics saw the film as risky because it dealt with a controversial issue, but I’ve seen Mel Brooks deal with controversy more tactfully. The film simply does not let us decide or make any moral judgment, it makes the moral judgment for us, and that is not good film-making.  And while not denying that overall the film is very well made, there is the feeling it was well made for possibly the wrong reason.  

Mark Chenoweth  4/3/2005