A Great Film

Rating: 10/10 (18 February 2005)

"Million Dollar Baby" is Clint Eastwood's best film as a director (at least so far , he's still young at 74).It tops even "Mystic River".
The story involves a young trailer park trash woman, wonderfully played by Hillary Swank, who thinks she can become a boxer.She has been waiting on tables for more than half her life, her life is at a total stand still and she has no way to go other than boxing.She comes to Clint Eastwood's gym and refuses to leave and he eventually agrees to train her.Morgan Freemen,excellent as always,plays Eastwood's best friend, former client and janitor and rounds out the cast in this small, three-person drama.
Names you always, always remember from the movies include Hal 9000, Fred C.Dobbs and Marge Gunderson.It's the damnedest thing.What's so unusual about the names "Marge Gunderson" and "Fred Dobbs"? Perfectly ordinary, there are probably many people named that.And yet, I don't recall the names of the main characters from "Casablanca" but remember the ones from "Fargo" and "The Treasure of the Sierra Mountains"."MDB" is newest addition to the list.Instead of in labels such as "the boxer" "the trainer" "the best friend",you speak of the characters by name as if they are real people.
For two thirds of its running time, "MDB" is a pretty standard rags-to-riches, underdog-triumphs boxing movie and one of the best since "Rocky".Then it completely takes another turn and truly finds greatness.It's a masterpiece, pure and simple.
Maggie is paralyzed from the neck down in a fight.She asks Frankie to put her out of her misery.At first, he flatly refuses.After she attempts suicide, he gives in and kills her.
Maggie's decision is wrong.In most cases, euthanasia is morally wrong. If I were in her place, I'd be devastated and maybe suicidally depressed but would learn to live with it.In fact,not being a good dancer or athlete,I might happier in a wheelchair and only occasionally miss jogging,swimming and not having to depend on others for literally everything from wiping my nose to going down the street.As long as I could still go to the movies, I'd be reasonably okay.Some of the most famous people in the world are paraplegics; look at the lives of Stephen Hawking, Christopher Reeve, Christy Brown, Larry Flynt or Muhammad Ali.
But Maggie is a boxer.Being a quadriplegic is a death sentence for her, like being a prisoner inside her own body.She only asks Frankie after she loses her leg.Losing her body is the worst possible thing that could ever happen to her and she doesn't have an educated mind to go on.
There is another reason she does what she does; except for Frankie and maybe Eddie, she's all alone in the world. We meet her unloving family twice, including her selfish, stupid mother. In one great scene, Frankie and Maggie go on a visit to her family.