Unmissable

Rating: Null/10 (10 February 2005)

There is more than meets the eye, however ample this initially may be, in Clint Eastwood's astounding film. It is more than a gripping and brilliantly performed drama of the rise and tragic fall of a female boxer who is taking her last chance for success in life.
The film is a perceptive portrait of social outcasts who, having failed for a variety of reasons to integrate into the society , try to survive in their own enclaved world. Frankie Dunn's (Clint Eastwood) gym is the focal point of this world, a place so untouched by time that seems outlandish. A place that harbours past dreamers who landed abruptly (Morgan Freeman) as well as those who like Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) want to put all their efforts for one last chance of success. For Maggie, unlike her predecessor who dumped once and for all the place and his mentor when he got his chance for the title, success does not necessary translate onto money, but it is more a form of recognition, acceptance and self-esteem or even survival, at least in her own mind. She is sneered and scorned by her family despite her generous efforts of proving her worth and showing her affection. Her actual family lies in the gym and her relationship with Dunn, who is estranged from his family and cannot find solace in the established institutions (Church), becomes blood relationship as time goes by.
Boxing is treated in the movie in a matter of fact way - a last refuge for the underdogs and a savage route for survival in a savage world. Boxing itself is indeed peripheral to the movie's central core which is mainly concerned with how relationships evolve (or not) in that isolated world rather than victories.
The story is told, unsurprisingly being a Clint Eastwood film, in a deceptively simple but extremely subtle and effective way. There are no high-pitched hammered out scenes to extract emotions from the viewer despite the fact that there were plenty of opportunities in the storyline. Clint Eastwood's directing style can be compared to going from one point to another from the shortest possible way, a method that allows him to go straight in the heart of the matter by separating the wheat from the chaff in order to achieve a genuine degree of representation. A "Million Dollar Baby" represents movie classicism at its perfection.