Script by Haggis, a longtime TV writer whose directorial debut, “Crash,” preemed at the Toronto fest, provides the piece with a perfectly balanced three-act structure, although he has somewhat diluted the piss-and-vinegar of Toole’s gritty prose. But those familiar with Toole’s story will know better, and anyone who has followed Eastwood’s work will realize the director couldn’t be bothered with a story that simplistic. Sensing, like her, the obvious surrogate father-daughter bond growing between them, Frank begins to respect her, and his regard increases when she starts mowing down club fight opponents.įor awhile, “Million Dollar Baby” may appear to be headed for female “Rocky” territory, a story of a young long-shot paired with an old bag of damaged goods who, through mutual reinforcement, make it to the top together. She has decided the sweet science represents her one shot at a life better than the lives of her welfare-grubbing trailer trash mother and siblings. Waitressing and living on pennies, Maggie, with a little help from Scrap, finally wears down Frank’s resistance.
He uses every excuse to discourage Maggie: He doesn’t take on “girls” at 31, she’s too old she doesn’t even know how to punch a heavybag or a speedbag. Just as he tries to maintain his link with Catholicism, he also tries to maintain a bridge to his Irish heritage by studying Gaelic and reading Yeats.įrank is none too welcoming when self-described hillbilly Maggie ( Hilary Swank) turns up at the gym and begins cajoling him to train her(all the other young boxers are black or Latino). A regular churchgoer, Frank has become such a nudge, with all his doubting questions, that his priest (Brian O’Byrne) would rather he stay away.
Ornery, cantankerous and abrasive, he can be especially rough on his closest friend, Scrap (Morgan Freeman), a one-eyed former fighter who lives at the gym and looks after it. Absent any family (the weekly letters he sends to his estranged daughter are always returned) and still hungry for a fighter who could go to the top, Frank has placed his hopes on a talented heavyweight (Mike Colter) who, just when he’s poised for a title shot, dumps the patient trainer who brought him to the brink of greatness for a more financially savvy manager.įrank is a complicated old guy. Toole published in 2000 under the title “Rope Burns: Stories From the Corner,” Paul Haggis’ script is centered on the low-rent but homey downtown Los Angeles gym run by old school boxing sage Frank (Eastwood).
He’s got a lot on his mind - mortality, moral decisions, living with mistakes and what one makes of one’s short time on earth - and he continues to hone his filmmaking style in a way so highly refined it approaches the abstract.īased primarily on a 40-page story called “Million $$$ Baby” that was one of six brilliant short stories by veteran boxing cut-man F.X. With so much success behind him, Eastwood continues to fearlessly tackle disturbing material that offers no assurance of public acceptance. faces a similar challenge with this one to transform certain critical acclaim into winning box office. “Mystic River” greatly surpassed anyone’s commercial expectations for a genuinely downbeat film, and Warner Bros. Staying at the top of his game when most of his contemporaries have long since hung up their gloves, Clint Eastwood delivers another knockout punch with “ Million Dollar Baby.” As if “Unforgiven” and “Mystic River” weren’t grave enough, this endlessly resourceful filmmaker goes just as dark and deep in this slow-burning drama of a determined female boxer and her hard-shelled trainer, a tale Eastwood invests with rewarding reserves of intimacy, tragedy, tenderness and bitter life knowledge.