A Spare and Gripping Character Study

Rating: Null/10 (29 January 2005)

"Million Dollar Baby" is a spare, minimalist and gripping character study. Even the elements that now and then seem a bit extraneous, particularly about religious faith, turn out in the last few minutes to be vital.
Director/star/scorer Clint Eastwood confidently pares the film and his performance down to its simplest elements. Tom Stern's cinematography is even more breathtaking than their collaboration on "Mystic River," especially in its use of darkness, and should have been recognized for an Oscar nomination. Paul Haggis's script recalls his ahead-of-its-time TV series "E.Z. Streets," where the dialog is more for character development and revelations than for plot.
Particularly wonderful are the interchanges between Eastwood and Morgan Freeman that are lovely evocations of long-time male camaraderie. A key element of the film is its exploration of paternal aspects of masculinity we rarely see on film without a sexual context - friendship, mentoring and responsibility.
The film, however, is almost too bare in its treatment of Hilary Swank's character, with none of the personal context that "Girl Fight" stressed, particularly in the lack of any romantic hints at all -- is it to avoid any issues about the tomboy's sexuality? But this keeps the spotlight on the central, quasi father-daughter relationship with its emotionally draining conclusion that packs a tremendous wallop.
One of the few jarring notes is the stereotyped portrayal of her grasping hillbilly relatives, including an inconsistency or two about them.
Freeman's continuing narration simply got on my nerves, even if it is rationalized in the last frame, especially when it re-emphasized something we were seeing visually. I felt it was recalling his essential commentary in "The Shawshank Redemption," which is explicitly referenced in an amusing epithet.
The glaring product placement for Everlast and the gratuitous reference to a Warner Brothers product were unnecessary and cheapened a moving story.