Movies |
Million Dollar Baby
directed by Clint Eastwood
By
Published: Jan 01, 2005
Category:
Drama
Million Dollar Baby
directed by Clint Eastwood
Ever since the credits rolled after “Million Dollar Baby,” I’ve been wanting to write about it. But all I’ve done is find reasons to put that off. Why? I didn’t know. Until today. And although I now know what my problem is, I still don’t want to write about this movie.
My issue: I identify with Hillary Swank.
And that is so uncomfortable.
For those who have not been told the plot of “Million Dollar Baby” — and you are the lucky ones — here’s as much as you need to know to understand what I mean by “I identify with Hillary Swank.”
Clint Eastwood is a boxing trainer in his 70s who now runs a gym in some back-of-beyond part of California. He had a wife at some point; she’s long gone. He has a daughter somewhere, and he writes to her, a letter a week; she returns them, unopened. His only relationship is with his gym helpmate, Morgan Freeman, who was once a boxer under his management.
Into the gym comes Hillary Swank. She’s a waitress from nowheresville. And she’s going nowhere fast. But she has a dream — she’s going to be a boxer.
She’s too old. And she’s “a girl.” Clint has no interest. He’d rather read his Yeats and learn a bit of Celtic and hope, before he dies, to find a lemon pie worth eating.
But you know how it is, in movies and in real life. The stuff you say you’ll never do….you end up doing it. Morgan Freeman pleads Swank’s case, Clint relents and becomes her trainer. And her manager. And if I tell you more than that, I’m doing you no favors.
In every movie, there’s someone you identify with — the people who make movies work very hard to be sure that happens. Although Clint Eastwood is, by far, the most attractive 75-year-old actor in the history of film, the trainer he plays here isn’t the magnet you’re drawn to. He’s deliberately stiff, remote, silent. He doesn’t want you to read him, and you can’t.
But Swank — that’s another matter. She’s the embodiment of desire, of dreams. And, equally, of dreams and desires that have been thwarted. Like Eastwood, she holds her emotions in check — for awhile, anyway — but we know they’re seething just beneath the surface. Every rejection, every personal slight is etched there; she’s a walking inventory of all the bad things that happen to anyone who doesn’t live in a bubble.
If that’s not enough to make you identify with her, there’s the large fact of her Impossible Dream. Movies — especially sports movies — work best when there’s some madly unlikely quest at their center. And what is more unlikely than a 30-year-old trying to make a name for herself in women’s boxing?
(Interestingly, the process of preparing for the film mirrors the character’s struggle. To get the right look for the film, Swank spent four months boxing two hours a night and two hours each morning lifting weights. But she isn’t buffed and cut; indeed, she barely looks fit. Which is as it should be; looking at this woman, you’d never think she’s a winner.)
If you’re hoping “Million Dollar Baby” is a boxing movie — a female “Rocky” — hope again. There are great boxing sequences, but this is a “relationship movie,” maybe even a “chick flick.” Listen to Eastwood on the dynamic of the Swank-Eastwood relationship: “He’s the father that died that she loved very much, she’s the daughter that he’s estranged from, and he has the greatest moral dilemma that you can imagine…”
A love story, then. Surrogate father, surrogate daughter. So much emotion flowing between them, so much that can’t be said. And flowing through it all, Swank’s remarkable determination and Eastwood’s deep, unspoken commitment to her. ( At one point, Swank needs to know: “Will you leave me?” I won’t tell you Eastwood’s answer, but it’s right up there with “Make my day” — you’ll carry it with you for a long long time.)
A three-character movie, with conversations that are like sparring and scenes that roll out at a relaxed, natural pace — “Million Dollar Baby” gives you lots of time to react to it and then to look inside and chart your reactions. For me, that meant a solid hour of confrontation with sadness. Not just mine, but everybody’s, for who among us has no regrets, who doesn’t wish to be More?
The brave and original achievement of this film is that it doesn’t downplay sadness — it’s the air the characters breathe. But they are willing to be lucky, they’re brave enough to take a chance. And as you watch, you begin to grasp: Win, lose or draw, these are champs.
Prepare to leave the movie in tears. But they’re good tears, cleansing tears, tears that just might send you to your own version of a punching bag. And, definitely, tears that make you want to hold your dear ones tighter. That’s quite a bargain for the price of a movie ticket.
