February 10, 2005

Three Of Three

THE CASE FOR THE
MILLION DOLLAR BABY

Ladies and gentlemen… may it please the voters…

The wounds of a lifetime are slow to heal. Million Dollar Baby has boxing in it… it has the overcoming of odds… it has tragedy… but mostly, it is a story of redemption for two people who can only find their redemption in one another. The dramatic twists on that road have caused a lot of conversation. But redemption is at the heart of this story.

What other film this season can speak to the most powerful forms of redemption? Good, kind people live their lives, trying, fighting, grasping. And all too often, we never get that chance to answer the big questions. In Million Dollar Baby, a 31 year old woman who has had none of the advantages of the world, Hilary Swanks' Maggie Fitzgerald, will not go quietly into that good night. Why is she drawn to boxing? There are hints, but it is beyond conventional explanation. The dramatic truth is that there is only want path that her journey can take.

Caught up in Maggie's passion is Eastwood's Frankie Dunn, who tips his cap daily to the idea of finding a solution in a daily visitor to his church, but has been disappointed - by himself and others - so many times that he tries as hard as he can to keep looking the other way when the answer comes by. But Maggie is too strong, too resilient and too compelling an opportunity to keep on passing.

And then the real answer to Million Dollar Baby emerges… life is not so much about winning and losing as it is about the choices we make. In the end, we can only forgive ourselves, as nobody else's forgiveness can ever be enough.

This is the canvas of Million Dollar Baby. This is the knockout punch. And this is why this is the film to win Best Picture in 2005.

Every time you think that Eastwood has turned that final period in his life into an exclamation mark, it turns out that it was just part of the ellipsis… as he continues to surprise in new ways with the kind of work that the economics of Hollywood have banished to television.

Here, Eastwood gives the performance of a lifetime. Finally, stripped of the iconic status that has made him one of the world's biggest movie stars, Eastwood bares a soul full of anguish and questions. Perhaps the closest Eastwood characterization to the actual Eastwood is on tap here. Frankie has the dry Eastwood humor, the publicly self-effacing style with the private hubris, and the simple, pure offer of a better way to do what you do.

Morgan Freeman plays a near-blind former boxer, Scrap, who can see Frankie and everything else better than any wholly sighted person. As Maggie's relentlessness drives Frankie, Scrap's relaxed humanity never allows Frankie to withdraw too completely into his cynicism. Freeman is magic.

Hilary Swank becomes Maggie in a way that is almost unimaginable for any other actress. With almost anyone else, audiences would be hyperaware that the physicality of Maggie was a reach. Swank's long, lithe, muscular body slips naturally into Everlasts. And so often lost in the overall scheme of things is that Swank is not playing a kid. Of course, Swank's Maggie is standing in for Frankie's estranged daughter, who is probably a little older, but not so much so that it doesn't connect.

But as powerful as the third act "twist" of Million Dollar Baby is, dealing with it in its details is a bit beside the point. The answer to M$B is the classic Rocky answer… winning is not where life's greatest lessons come from… you learn the most from loss… but only if you allow yourself to. Because it is not the loss - or the win - but finally learning to see beyond such simplistic boundaries.

This theme is central to most of Eastwood's work as a director. The suffering of Bird… the passionate rage of Misty… the gentleman farmer with such a dark past in Unforgiven… the moral ambiguity of the final murder in Mystic River... no Clint Eastwood movie could ever be made in blacks & whites in any way other than in the choice of celluloid colors.

There is a delightful comedy in the Oscar mix and three period biopics that reach for triumph in the face of adversity. But only Million Dollar Baby reaches into the dark side and reminds us that triumph is easy… survival is hard.

Of course, the greatest irony is that Eastwood could not deliver a more minimalist film to delve into this deep darkness. It is as dry as his performance. People looking for great fight footage will be disappointed. But if you are looking for the aesthetic flash of other films, you are missing the power of Million Dollar Baby.

The boxing metaphor - as it could be any business, really - is emotion with an immediate return… no more distant than the tip of a glove. And when Million Dollar Baby swings at you, it connects… because not many of us are boxers… but we all understand loss and desperation and desire and unexpected love.

Million Dollar Baby is a movie the way they used to make 'em, but a movie they never really made before. The truth of it is too harsh for years gone by… too unglamourous… too uninterested in itself. And once it hits you, it leaves a mark, a memory, that will last long after all of its competitors have faded.

E-ME:

The Case for Sideways
The Case for The Aviator

Sundance Wrap-Up
Sundance Preview Part I
Sundance Preview Part 2