Million Dollar Baby (2004)
| Drama,Sport
English
"Beyond his silence, there is a past. Beyond her dreams, there is a feeling. Beyond hope, there is a memory. Beyond their journey, there is a love." A hardened trainer/manager works with a determined woman in her attempt to establish herself as a boxer.
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It's a knockout ...
Flawlessly written, acted and directed, MILLION DOLLAR BABY is being
hymned and wreathed by the critics as the best film of 2004. They're
absolutely right. "An old master's new masterpiece," the NEW YORK TIMES
said in a review that was more of an open love letter to Eastwood than
anything remotely resembling a critical analysis of the film itself.
For once such honey-tongued critical adulation is fully merited. Dark,
edgy, subtle and at times emotionally devastating, MILLION DOLLAR BABY
represents the apotheosis of Eastwood's art - the most lucid and
intelligently limned expression of his philosophy of the outsider, the
noble loners whose personal codes of honour set them both above and
apart from the compromised, corrupt societies they inhabit. The Boxing
Ring As Metaphor For Life is a hoary trope almost as old as Hollywood
itself, employed to varying effect in films as diverse as THE CHAMP,
GOLDEN BOY, REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT, THE GREAT WHITE HOPE, FAT CITY,
ROCKY and RAGING BULL. In MILLION DOLLAR BABY, though, Eastwood the
director brings a fresh eye and an entirely fresh approach to both the
setting and characterisations, virtually re-inventing this venerable
sub-genre rather than simply recycling its conventions. Eastwood the
actor is in fine form - a commanding if increasingly weather-beaten
presence - as gym owner Frankie Dunn. A case study in loneliness,
Dunn's creased face is a map of places you'd rather not go to and
disappointment has clearly been a life-long companion. Co-stars Hilary
Swank and the magnificent Morgan Freeman, playing Frankie's unlikely
protegee Maggie Fitzgerald and friend "Scrap-Iron" Dupris, give what
are without question the best performances of their respective careers:
deftly underplayed, their roles provide emotionally overwhelming
impacts more powerful than anything glimpsed in the film's riotous
fight sequences. Forming an iron triangle forged from mutual
dependence, Dunn and Dupris school the impulsive but untutored Maggie
in both the techniques of boxing and the tradecraft of survival in a
world pre-disposed to pulverise individualism. The canvas-floored
square ring becomes the arena in which all three characters confront
their various demons, battling for both victory and personal
redemption. Paul Haggis' screenplay is itself a masterwork, improving
on its source material without betraying the concise but compelling
situations and superbly drawn characters found in F.X. Toole's short
stories. And, finally, Eastwood the composer's elegiac but unobtrusive
score is a minor classic of its kind, a requiem to both lost souls and
lost causes. MILLION DOLLAR BABY is not only the best film released in
2004 it is also the most fully realised and richly textured major
studio movie of the decade.
