Million Dollar Baby: Movie, DVD, HD DVD & Blu-ray Review (2004) by Christopher Smith

(Originally published December 2004)

At this year’s major awards shows — the Critics’ Choice Awards, the Golden Globes, the Academy Awards — the real battle for best picture will come down to a fight between a billionaire aviator, a million-dollar boxer and a penniless drunk.

Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator,” Clint Eastwood’s “Million Dollar Baby” and Alexander Payne’s “Sideways” — those are the movies generating the most heat for awards consideration.

At first, it seemed as if “Sideways” was the shoo-in — it’s a marvelous movie, with performances by Paul Giamatti and Virginia Madsen that won’t go unnoticed when the Academy nominates later this month. But when “The Aviator” opened, the race tightened, with “Sideways” suddenly sidelined and on shaky ground.

Now comes “Baby,” which is so terrific, it throws everything into question. It’s the best movie of Eastwood’s career and it very well could leave “Sideways” in a slump and Scorsese without the Oscar that has eluded him throughout his own career.

Based on a screenplay by Paul Haggis, the film is the story of Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), a 31-year-old, self-described piece of “trash” whose dream is to become a prize-winning boxer under Frankie Dunn (Eastwood), a gruff boxing trainer and manager who “doesn’t train girlies” and who wants Maggie out of his gym.

But Maggie isn’t going anywhere. And so, with the encouragement of Frankie’s best friend, Scrap (Morgan Freeman), who narrates the film and helps to manage Frankie’s gym, Maggie perseveres until Frankie acquiesces. He agrees to train and manage her, so long as she does things his way.

While there’s nothing new in that story, it’s what Eastwood does with it that makes “Million Dollar Baby” worth as many accolades.

Indeed, what Frankie and Maggie find in each other is something deeper than the sport that binds them. As Maggie rises up through the ranks with a stunning series of wins — she’s a natural in the ring, as light on her feet as Eastwood is behind the camera — Frankie realizes a relationship with her that he doesn’t share with his estranged daughter. Likewise, Maggie realizes with Frankie the relationship she can’t have with her family, whose cruelty knows no limits.

Mirroring the football movie “Friday Night Lights,” “Million Dollar Baby” thus transcends the sport. It’s about the surrogate families we create for ourselves — the relationships we choose to have, rather than the relationships born out of blood.

It creates an emotional bond with its audience that’s as solid and as meaningful as anything shared between its characters. You invest yourself so completely in the story — and in the lives of Frankie, Maggie and Scrap — that by the time Eastwood drives home his final, awful twist, you’re left devastated and spent.

Superbly crafted and acted, with an unassuming score composed by Eastwood himself, “Million Dollar Baby” is timeless, classic, seemingly effortless. While I think “The Aviator” still has the edge for Best Picture, if only because of its grander scope and the balance of drama, comedy and romance Scorsese had to strike, “Million Dollar Baby” joins “Sideways” in existing on its own plane.

At this year’s awards shows, it’ll be interesting to see how it all shakes out.

Grade: A

Note: Million Dollar Baby won Best Picture.