Review by Jane Freebury
Million Dollar Baby sounds more like a romantic romp, a battle of the sexes, or a doco about IVF than a drama about a young waitress who wants to be a boxer. So it was hardly surprising to see that the international movie database has movies listed under the same name, such as a romantic comedy made in 1941, with Ronald Reagan.
Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby ain’t no comedy. Yet there’s rueful humour in his beautifully nuanced film as a relationship begins to emerge between boxing aspirant Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank, so good in Boys Don’t Cry) and the veteran trainer and gym owner Frankie Dunn (Eastwood), who finally agrees to take her on.
We’ve been here before in Rocky, Raging Bull, Girlfight and Fight Club and more, with boxing as metaphor for life in a highly competitive society, but this movie reads like a lesson in living for the underclass, namely white trailer trash who see boxing as the only option for getting a shot at success. Motivational posters on the walls of the Hit Pit gym shout that ‘tough ain’t enough’. Intriguingly, Frankie reads Gaelic in his spare time.
Both Maggie and Frank are noble loners. Frankie is estranged from his daughter and a few devastating encounters with Maggie’s family suggest that she’s better off looking to her roots for inspiration than to her thankless, grasping family.
Hilary Swank is terrific again at last, however it is the old warrior Eastwood whose presence is absolutely everywhere. In front of the camera and behind it, in the vintage Hollywood aesthetic and the elegiac tone also seen recently in Mystic River. Once again, Eastwood is credited with the music.
Eastwood has never been credited with screenwriting on any of his films, but it’s hard to believe he hasn’t had a hand in the words here. Frankie can’t find what he needs in institutionalized religion and makes a devastating stand for euthanasia against established medical practice. Here is a man contemplating his own mortality.
Boxing’s not my thing, but from the iconic shots in silhouette against the white walls of the gym, to the graceful slow fades to the lightly applied guitar strings, Million Dollar Baby doesn’t strike a false note. And is another powerful and moving movie from the 75-year-old who’s still one of the best directors working today.
In a capsule: So soon after Mystic River, another moving and majesterial film from Clint Eastwood shows everyone how it’s done.
4.5 stars