Front De Troglodistes

Let me just start out by saying that Million Dollar Baby is an astonishing movie. It is easily the best movie of 2004 (certainly that I've seen so far), it is likely one the best boxing movies ever made, and it ranks alongside Unforgiven as one of Clint Eastwood's best films as a director. Yes, of course, it has its flaws, but you know what? Who cares? Taken as a whole this movie is simply fantastic.

Now, any film reviewer can tell you all of the above, so it really doesn't need repeating by me. I'm interested in writing about a few specific subjects pertaining to the movie: the complex moral universe portrayed in the best of Clint Eastwood's films, such as this one, the moral universe of those who have perpetrated the ridiculous and insane controversy surrounding this great film, and the telling differences between these disparate universes. But before I get into that, let me say a little about the film.

First of all, the film's so called "plot twist" is not even much a twist when compared to what happens in any daytime soap opera. Futhermore, if describing this plot twist is actually a "spoiler" for you, you shouldn't go to see the movie anyway (if you're one of those people, maybe this might suit you better).

The film is the story of aging boxing trainer Frankie Dunn (Eastwood) and his relationship with a tough woman with nothing much going for her but the hope of realizing her boxing dreams. When we meet Frankie he's been estranged from his only daughter for many years, he loses a promising young boxer that he has been training to a manager that is willing to finally give the kid a shot at a title bout--something that the overcautious Frankie has been holding him back from for too long. He's grown accustomed to being used, betrayed and abandoned, which makes him unwilling to let anyone get close to him, but he's also a fundamentally decent man. When Maggie Fitzgerald (Hillary Swank) appears in his gym he writes her off because she's a woman and--even if he were interested in training women for, what he calls, the "freakshow" of women's boxing--at 31, she's too old and and has little to no experience. However, Frankie's partner, Eddie 'Scrap-Iron' Dupris (Freeman) sees something in Maggie and helps her out here and there until Frankie finally breaks down and agrees to train her.

The bulk of the film shows Maggie training and improving, winning fights and moving up in the ranks, but what's interesting to watch is how Frankie and Maggie's relationship deepens and how Eastwood and Swank make Maggie Fitzgerald into a personification of athletic determination and heart that makes Rocky Balboa look like a bum. But the movie goes to another level when the so-called "plot twist" happens--which is really nothing more than an upsetting of expectations. Maggie finally gets her shot at a title bout against a German champion (this time Frankie dosen't make the same mistake he made before by being overly cautious and overprotective of his fighters); Maggie's opponent is portrayed as a ferocious and dirty fighter, mainly to set up the "twist". The "twist" is that Maggie's opponent throws an illegal punch after a round has just ended, causing Maggie to fall on a chair and break her neck, which renders her a quadrapalegic.

The last third of the movie shows Maggie grappling with her situation and finally chosing to die instead of living bed- and wheelchair-bound for the rest of her life. She asks Frankie to help her die and, after much agonizing over her request, he finally agrees to help her. And this is where, if the lunatics and opportunists are to be believed, the movie becomes nothing more than propaganda for assited suicide and bigotry against hadicapped people.

The soul of all drama is the making of choices and the consequences of those choices. The best films of Clint Eastwood--and this is without a doubt one of his all-time best--show us a world where right and wrong, good and evil are not always simple matters that have simple soulutions. He shows us a world where follwing moral or religious prescriptions as if they were traffic laws or tax regulations doesn't necessarily make you a good person. His films show, in fact, how life can often make non sequiturs out of moral platitudes. In a way, this film quietly asks the question: what does it mean to be 'good', what does it mean to do the right thing when one lives in the real world? To very poorly paraphrase a line spoken by Morgan Freeman in the film, in reference to training: "if doing something hurts, you're probably doing the right thing." One of the most powerful aspects of Clint Eastwood's work as a filmmaker is the depiction of the adversity and pain people often face just trying to be a decent human being in this world.

To be a good person in the real world often means doing things that your clergyman or the law would not approve of. Even if you believe in some kind of god or subscribe to some kind of moral system, for every human being of substance, there are certain moments in your life where no book, no god, and no law will be of any help to you at all. There will be moments when doing the right thing comes down to what you feel in your gut, in your heart, and what makes you good (if there can be a true measure of goodness) is having the courage to follow the dictates of your own conscience against everything. But also, to complicate matters even more, what makes most people good or bad is more than just the sum total of their choices.

What makes this movie unrealistic, in a sense, is that Frankie Dunn is a truly moral man of the kind which any decent human being could respect and might want to emulate, which is rare in reality. I would even venture to say that he is a moral giant in comparison to most real people, and certainly in comparison to the bigoted, bible-thumping little moral midgets that have attacked this film. But, like being ideologically correct, being realistic should not be a requirement for a work of art in an allegedly free society.

I don't mean to imply that the character Frankie Dunn is some kind of superman, he is just a man, a flawed man who cares deeply for other people and carries every regret in his life like a millstone around his neck. Frankie knows from personal experience that the world is more grey than black and white and in no way does he come to the decision to do what Maggie asks of him easily. When we have reached the point in the story where Maggie decides she wants to die, Frankie loves her very much and wants her to stay alive for his own selfish reasons. Why helping Maggie die is such a moral act is because he realizes that really loving someone means respecting their wishes, even if their wish is to be let go of forever.

There is no propaganda in this film, only a great work of art that follows it's own dramatic logic to an incredibly powerful conclusion. This great film will live on long after the moral midgets and opportunists have been forgotten.

[By the way, here's a pretty good interview with Clint Eastwood about Million Dollar Baby and the controversy surrounding it.]