Ray Pride

It's not the hype, it's the heat. The praise that was lavished upon Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River" is even more deserved for "Million Dollar Baby," a remarkable movie that drinks deeply at the well of Hollywood classicism while reflecting Eastwood's own well-worn sensibility. Told with flinty economy and deep-hued grace, it's mostly the story of three characters, Frankie Dunn (Eastwood), ancient boxing gym proprietor, his closed-off colleague, Eddie (Morgan Freeman), and Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), who shows up one day wanting Frankie's guidance. Frankie doesn't train "girls," he tells this woman past 30 from Theodosia, Missouri, "somewhere between nowhere and goodbye." But everyone has quiet, dark reasons, and soon she's hoping against hope. Eastwood's often lit in the merest thumb blots of light, making a corona about his crinkled leather face. He chooses eyelines for Swank that are mostly medium shots aligned to capture fervent light in her gleaming eyes, or the shy proud smile that keeps sneaking onto that face. Swank plays Maggie with a girly-twerpy drawl, ostensible innocence hiding toughness. Sculpted, androgynous, her eyes wild and lips voluptuous, Swank is utterly convincing in her combinations, doing her own boxing. (She apparently can't do the footwork, as Eastwood's camera seldom cuts away from her first-round fists.) The sound effects are sturdy but clean: you ache. How can something so visually sepulchral envelop such heart? "Million Dollar Baby" is an exquisite heartbreaker with social undercurrents: consider it a parallel Jessica Lynch's dilemma, say: from a small town in West Virginia, with essentially no choice whatsoever, if you want the education to teach small children, earn the money for your education in Iraq behind the barrel of a gun. Poverty's that way. America's that way. I love this movie.

"Million Dollar Baby" is now playing.

(2004-12-14)

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