Highly over-rated movie because it is poorly understood

Rating: 1/10 (2 April 2005)

I went to see Million Dollar Baby (MDB) with high expectations and a fondness for Eastwood's more compassionate works. I came out feeling mildly disappointed, but with an underlying uneasiness that gradually grew into distaste and even disgust.
MDB is two movies, back-to-back. The first is an almost typical sports story, like "Karate Kid" or a thousand others. The "almost" qualifier is only because of the intensity of the Swank character's extraordinary humility and dedication, and the intensity of the resistance against her from Eastwood's character -- this was so extreme that its inevitable reversal seemed equally unmotivated. Realizing that this more-or-less standard inspirational success story was insufficient for Oscar material, Eastwood tacked on the second plot as a shameless tear-jerker. Both halves seem fundamentally trite, except for their exaggeration of the well-worn themes they exploit.
It has been set so that dealing with any specifics of this second plot is considered a "spoiler", although I'm confident that by now anyone following the news knows full well what it is about. But it should be considered fair warning to prospective viewers to say that the protests from the community of persons with disabilities (against MDB's "better dead than disabled" message) were not only well-founded but given special poignancy by the recent death of one of Hollywood's real heroes (Christopher Reeves).
The one-word summary of MDB's greatest sin is STEREOTYPING. Morgan Freeman's character escapes this and gives the movie the bulk of what substance it has (much of rest comes from a "born-to-lose" minor character boxer who manages to overcome the extraneousness of his part), but Eastwood and Swank's strong performances can not redeem the stereotypical characters they are condemned to play.
But the very worst (again, because so exaggerated) and perhaps most important stereotyping was of the heroine's family. Actually, they were insufficiently drawn as a family to be a stereotype, but each of its members was a stereotype in the extreme: the pretty but spineless and dissolute (and obviously unwed) young mother, her hostile boyfriend who would have been considered a security risk by the Hell's Angels, and the fat-and-ugly welfare queen mother herself. The unifying factors of these three characters were (1) their lack of affection or sympathy for anyone in general and for Swank's character in particular, (2) their dedication to exploiting the welfare system for all they can get (which is implied to be supporting them forever despite the Clinton-era's "welfare reform" limits), and (3) their lust for Swank's money. Stereotypes all, but not just any stereotypes -- these are the wet-dream stereotypes of a right-wing ideologue whose goal in reforming the safety net is to destroy it.
I am content with the Best Supporting Actor award, and I'm not going to argue with MDB's Best Actor or Best Director awards despite my suspicions. But why the Best Picture award? It is all too easy to suspect that it may reflect the Academy's wish to prove their political correctness and placate their right-wing critics, despite irritating the religious right with its more-or-less positive presentation of "right to die". In any event, it seems a travesty to present MDB as the Best Picture of the year.