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Film Review
Million Dollar Baby
Distributor Road Show, 2005
Starring Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank,
Morgan Freeman
Producer Clint Eastwood
Review by Jenni van Wageningen
After many years in boxing, Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) is still one
of the best trainers around. Yet he keeps on losing his most promising
boxers because he insists on delaying their progress to title matches.
Deep down he is afraid of feeling responsible for any serious injuries.
Frankie is also a skilled ‘cut man’ who comes to the
aid of injured boxers to stop bleeding and assess the physical condition
of the fighter.
When Maggie (Hilary Swank) turns up at the gym with naïve aspirations to
become a great female boxer, Frankie wants nothing to do with her. But
she persists, and as he comes to respect her determination and talent,
he relents and begins her training. The bond between them grows as a
result of Maggie’s desire for a father-figure and Frankie’s need for a
daughter.
Maggie goes on to take the female boxing world by storm until a freak accident changes both their lives.
At first sight this appears to be just a boxing movie about a feisty young woman who overcomes all the odds to make it to the top of her chosen sport. Yet it is much more than this. It is the story of the hopes, fears and regrets of three people. In particular it is about one man’s deep and ongoing spiritual struggle.
Frankie has deep hurts and wounds which have never healed. He is unable to forgive himself for what happened to his friend in a fight many years previously and wrestles daily with his guilty conscience. Eddie Scrap Iron (Morgan Freeman) reached the end of his career when he lost his sight in one eye after Frankie chose not to pull him out.
Frankie is also burdened by a broken heart because of his estranged daughter. Although he writes to her every day, all his letters are returned unopened.
Yet Frankie is a searcher with a questioning faith. He attends mass every day, but instead of finding answers, he goes away empty. Father Horvak shows obvious impatience and irritation with his questions about points of doctrine, and worst of all, he brushes aside Frankie’s pressing moral dilemma. He offers no comfort, but only the threat that God’s grace and forgiveness may run out. It is hardly surprising that Frankie feels that God has turned a deaf ear.
This is not a comfortable movie to watch - for one thing, women boxers in action are not a pretty sight! But the real struggle is in Frankie’s heart and soul, and this intensifies in the second half of the movie when he wrestles with a life and death issue. By this stage he appears to have lost all hope, to have given up on God.
Many viewers may be rather shell-shocked by the sudden and unpredictable turn of events and then by the final outcome – which I won’t fully reveal.
The movie depicts an assisted suicide, an act portrayed not only as courageously compassionate, but also inevitable. We live in a world where life seems to have little value and where the term ‘quality of life’ is bandied about as a rationale for difficult decisions. Christians, however, find hope and comfort in knowing that God is the author and giver of life, even in the bleakest circumstances, and that he is never far from those who cry for help. Unfortunately Frankie was never able to realise this.
For Frankie in particular, there is no escape from the aching scars of the past. Instead of finding forgiveness, resolution and peace he moves through a shadowy moral landscape, unable to sense the presence of a loving God. As a result he makes unwise choices from his limited and despairing human perspective. Life without God is indeed empty and pointless.
This movie will stimulate plenty of questions,
objections and discussion!
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