Shout out to Million Dollar Baby for being the second movie on this list to make me bawl like a baby!
Released in 2004, Million Dollar Baby has gone on to win 67 awards from its release to 2006. Four of those awards were Oscars for Best Motion Picture of the Year (Clint Eastwood, Albert S. Ruddy, Tom Rosenberg), Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Hilary Swank), Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Morgan Freeman), and Best Achievement in Directing (Clint Eastwood). The movie was written by Paul Higgins and was based on 'Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner,' a collection of short stories by F.X. Toole, the pen name of fight manager and cutman Jerry Boyd. The movie was directed by Clint Eastwood, an American actor, film director, producer, and composer who rose to fame after his success in Rawhide, a Western TV series. The film's many accolades place the movie at 215th place on IMDb's Top 250 Films list.
Clint Eastwood plays the main character, Frankie Dunn, alongside Hilary Swank, who plays Maggie Fitzgerald. Morgan Freeman is the movie's narrator and plays a supporting role in Million Dollar Baby. Shockingly, the film was shot in under 40 days in the Warner Studios lots and around Los Angeles. The movie tells the story of a determined woman, Maggie, who works with a tough boxing trainer to become a professional and take the title of the world's best boxer. In a sports film, strength and skill are integral parts of the main character's personality and performance. How does Maggie show her strength throughout the movie?
A muscular physique and accurate punches can only get you so far in a match in the boxing ring. Emotional strength, the strength of character, discipline, intelligence, and courage are all essential components to be the best fighter in any game. What made Maggie so strong was her tenacity. Maggie sucked before Frankie coached her. She couldn't punch properly, didn't know what a speed bag was, and stole leftover food from the restaurant to eat at home. But Maggie didn't back down. She kept going and showed up at the gym every day; she represented determination and self-respect. Despite the stereotype of an over-aged woman in boxing, she doesn't give up. Moved by Maggie's determination, Frankie gives in. But, Maggie makes it very clear from the beginning that she wants a trainer, not charity. After taking Maggie under his wing, her journey to become the best boxer in the world began. She earned the reputation of a world-class champion who beat her opponents in the first round. During this time, Maggie and Frankie establish a paternal bond.
The film deviates from the recipe of happy endings. Maggie meets a horrific accident in the ring and is left completely paralyzed from the neck down. She developed skin ulcers on the inside of her leg so horrible that the portion had to be amputated. Throughout her hospital stay and time in rehab, she concluded that there was nothing more she could do to make her happy. She had her shot at greatness and thrived in the boxing world, just as she wanted to. While the ending is heartbreaking, I wouldn't say it was tragic. Maggie chooses to die on her terms after acknowledging that she's lived a good life and after getting rid of her abusive and opportunist biological family. Frankie is then left alone again, deciding to fall off the grid and retire from boxing forever. Watching Maggie grow through her matches is therapeutic. She embodies emotional and mental strength, and her spirit and resilience are for the books. When she was stealing food to survive, Maggie still called the shots and decided her fate down to when she was paralyzed.
What flipped the film from its usual course of fighter movie stereotypes is Maggie herself. She's a 32-year-old novice female fighter in the ring for the first time. Fighter films have always been a man's domain, and Million Dollar Baby disrupted that hypermasculine pattern. Maggie wanting to fight was a genuine and normalized aspiration, and so was Maggie's subsequent conquest of the boxing world. After Maggie's death, the film received backlash. Viewers wished that she would have become a motivational speaker or some other bullshit, and Eastwood responded to the criticism by saying the film was about the American dream. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Eastwood distanced himself from the actions of characters in his films, noting, "I've gone around in movies blowing people away with a .44 Magnum. But that doesn't mean I think that's a proper thing to do," which is a very sound argument. The movie's emotional impact and clean and clear lines of its story and characters are what make Million Dollar Baby such a good movie. The content itself isn't groundbreaking, but the way the film handles its content is.
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