beautifully realized drama

Rating: 9/10 (9 September 2005)

The thing that strikes you the most while watching "Million Dollar Baby" is just how confident Clint Eastwood has become as a director. Armed with a good story, he allows the drama to unfold at its own pace, never feeling the need to fancy it up or hurry it along to cater to audience expectations. In fact, in every key area, this masterful film finds Eastwood - as both director and actor - at the top of his form.
Eastwood plays Frank Dunn, an aging boxer-turned-trainer who has yet to hit the big time with any of his "clients." The gym he runs in a seedy part of Los Angeles seems more like a watering hole for outcasts and misfits than the launching pad for the next welter-, middle-, or heavyweight champion of the world. Then one day, into his gym, strides Maggie Fitzgerald, a wide-eyed girl from the Ozarks with dreams of making it big in the arena. Even though she has set her sights on Dunn as the man who will teach her, Dunn makes it clear to her that he has absolutely no interest in taking on "a girl" for training purposes. But when he sees her determination and fiery spirit, he agrees - however reluctantly - to show her the ropes. The film is an account of the warm relationship that develops between this old man - who has long ago lost contact with his own estranged daughter, and sees in Maggie, if only subconsciously, a chance to make some kind of amends for his own sins - and this feisty, full-hearted girl from the hills.
Even though "Million Dollar Baby" has all the earmarks of a typical underdog sports movie, the film far transcends its genre through the excellence of both its screenplay and the performances by Eastwood, Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman, who, in the role of a former boxer himself and Dunn's closest friend, provides the voice of practicality and reason that permeates the film. His narration (as it did also in this summer's "War of the Worlds" and "March of the Penguins") lends the film the gravitas and classicism it needs to stand out from the crowd.
Basing his screenplay on stories by Rope Burns, Paul Haggis has written dialogue that is astute, dramatic and authentic, far more literate than what we are accustomed to finding in most mainstream American movies. And, in his direction, Eastwood establishes just the right rhythm in the speech patterns to draw the audience into the center of the drama. Of course, Eastwood would never have been able to achieve this level of greatness without evoking strong performances from his assembled cast. As an actor, Eastwood himself has never been better than he is here. Gruff and cantankerous one moment, he is tender and warmhearted the next. Dunn has many deep-seated regrets about the past, but, even though his choices have rendered him virtually alone in the world, he still manages to remain both decent in his treatment of others and optimistic about the future. In her second Oscar-winning performance, Swank provides just the right mixture of naïve sweetness, openhearted frankness and unquenchable determination to bring Margaret to vivid life. And Freeman, as always, delivers a beautifully understated performance as the man of quiet perceptions whom Dunn has leaned on for guidance and advice for nigh unto thirty years. Together, this amazing ensemble molds what might have been a cliché-ridden tale into a work of art.
Beautiful in its pacing and exquisite in its details, "Million Dollar Baby" is, without question, Clint Eastwood's finest film to date.