Million Dollar Baby-Theater

Million Dollar Baby (2004), Dir. Clint Eastwood

Big sigh. It seems that ol' Clint can never disappoint. It seems like each film he turns out ends up being better than the last, even though you don't think it's possible. Scorsese has nothing on Eastwood, and if AVIATOR wins over this one, the whole thing is rigged. You heard it here first.

It is so nice and refreshing and fulfilling to watch a film that shows you the lives of characters that live and breathe and win and lose and hope and fear without any of the attempts at profundity and schmalz that brings so many films down. There is no attempt to manipulate your emotions. Oh, you want to cry, you want the fighter to get up and win so you can cry some more, but Eastwood isn't going to make you do it. You have to do it on your own. He's not sitting there pulling on your heartstrings so you'll tell all your friends how you cried at all the good parts. He's too busy just telling the story. How wonderful.

There are things to be learned (or not learned from this picture). But he's not shoveling them down your throat like preachy cough medicine. You have to take something away from it that will end up being only yours. I'd be willing to bet that every person walks out of the theater thinking about a different part of the story and what it meant, trying to put it all together.

While I could do with a little less realism when it comes to blood and bodily injuries, I'm still ok with it here. And as for the rest of the cinematography, it is obvious that the shots are being carefully chosen to let the actors live in their space, and not be dominated by it. In this world, they get to move around and act like real people. The camera isn't trying to hide anything. It's not trying to make something out of nothing. (never underestimate the power of great casting) It's never romanticizing anything. I never wanted to be a boxer, and I still don't. It still looks too painful. What it is doing is showing you how complicated people are (although I wish the family had been a little more complex). It's showing you that the answers you want aren't necessarily the ones you're going to get, and that's if you get any answers at all. Sometimes they are just questions.

This movie was definitely one of the best I have seen in quite a while. Nice one, Clint.