Usually when books develop a buzz I refuse to read them. Seeing every other person on the subway reading The Da Vinci Code made it that much less desirable a read for me. The same goes for films. So on a Friday night when Hotel Rwanda was sold out, and I was forced to buy a ticket to Million Dollar Baby, I was less than pleased. It’s hard to find a critic who has not praised this film and its veteran actor/director Clint Eastwood. And with its two Golden Globe wins (Eastwood for Best Director and Hilary Swank for Best Actress) and seven Academy Award nominations, it seems Million Dollar Baby could be the surprise critical darling of the year. Beyond the buzz, I was also skeptical of the plotline, as I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to see girls beating each other up for two hours.
Eastwood’s character, weathered and cranky boxing trainer Frankie Dunn, asks himself the same question when the muscular but amateurish Maggie Fitzgerald (Swank) shows up at his gym. He tells her bluntly that not only does he not train “girlies,” but that at 31 she is too old for the sport. Further trouble comes from the cast of clowns who frequent the boxing club, but with behind-the-scenes help from the janitor, Scrap (Morgan Freeman), she earns their respect, and the chance to be trained by Frankie.
Using direct and simple shots, Eastwood takes his time and paces his film with the confidence his years of experience provide him. His impressive acting career has included classics like the spaghetti-westerns A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, but as his career has developed, his directing has received more praise than his acting. In films like The Bridges of Madison County he seemed unwilling to let go of the leading man persona. This does not happen in Baby, however, and perhaps that is why it works so well. He gives an open and honest performance as an old man who has to deal with loneliness, disappointment and death. Eastwood was a convincing cowboy-heartthrob at 25 years old, but at 74 he may have given his most believable and moving performance.
The best part of the film is the friendship between Frankie and Scrap. It is a friendship in the loosest of terms-they fight, bicker, tease and taunt, but always with witty dialogue and perfect delivery. Their intimacy is revealed in subtle gestures. At one point, Scrap sits on a bed in his “room”-a dark corner of the gym he curtains off for privacy-and watches a fight on his black-and-white TV. Frankie enters this makeshift room, offers Scrap a hamburger he “couldn’t eat” and asks to chat. Their scenes are simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny and deeply depressing. Both men express regret and hope with the stubbornness and grit I imagine is common to all aging boxers. Unfortunately, these scenes are far too short and far too scarce.
The relationship between Frankie and Maggie feels more forced. He has shoeboxes full of letters that have been returned unopened from his estranged daughter; she has an almost comically horrible mother who tries to swindle her out of her money. These seem like heavy-handed attempts to explain to the least astute moviegoers that these characters see in each other the parent and child they never had. A much more touching display of the growth of their relationship comes when Maggie takes Frankie to a remote roadside diner she knows that has the best lemon meringue pie, his favorite dessert. In an understated hint about the dark turn the movie later takes, he tells her he can “die happy” after having tasted it.
This film is not just another movie about athletic trials and triumph. It does have elements that will appeal to sports lovers-a broken nose here, a knocked out tooth there and plenty of “game-time” suspense and adrenaline in between. But unlike the inferior Girlfight, this movie manages to rise above the clich?s that threaten to bog it down. While familial unrest, girl power and sexism are discussed, they are, thankfully, not dwelled upon. Eastwood succeeds in portraying more than just a story of an underdog who makes it. He puts a tragic and unexpected twist on a familiar story, and the buzz, this time, is well deserved.
