April 3rd, 2005
Clint Eastwood offered both an impressive performance as the boxing trainer “Frankie”, and as a director, bringing compassion to – considering current events – the remarkably emotive, poignant storyline. Hilary Swank also offered a genuine performance both in the boxing ring and the events outside as “Maggie”. Morgan Freeman gave a likable performance similar to the character “Red” he played in The Shawshank Redemption.
Million Dollar Baby provided a great deal of other plotlines that could have been easily exploited during the duration of just over two hours. Only one sub plot involving two other characters was built upon, but in no way ever rivalled the central relationship between the boxer and trainer. Later on in the film, as the relationship developed according to the events, the film’s structure was put into the context of real life. However many distractions, the trainer’s attention to the boxer was never put out of that which was driving the scenes forward. Just like in life, you feel as if you just need to stop doing everything else and focus all your attention on what matters the most.
On a personal level I wouldn’t want to be in a situation where I had to rely on others to such an extensive degree simply to survive. There may be many people who oppose the way I feel regarding such an unfortunate personal state, but now I feel strongly that it should be the individual who decides.
Our existence is such a personal matter, I have reservations that we can never really tell anyone else what we really think about life, or what happens afterwards, so any wishes the individual has to cease can only really be understood for personal reasons. This is because there is no answer, nobody knows the meaning of life, and while you can read all the literature or watch all the media on the subject, it all comes back and you have to decide what you feel personally. To this point the moral majority shouldn’t be able to force you to keep living, they hold values on life and the meaning of it too, but because no one knows – or could possibly ever find out – they can’t say what you want to do is wrong.
The boxing plotline could be replaced with whatever you want, the underlying message is just take your shot at whatever you really want to do and that should be enough.
July 29th, 2006 at 9:35 am
[…] Check out Zach Braff’s blog on the links to the right, it’s interesting to here about him starting work on his new movie “The Last Kiss”– an adaptation from the Italian “L’ultimo Baccio”. Paul Haggis wrote the adaptation; Zach says he “tweaked the dialogue a little bit.” A notable mention– Paul Haggis also wrote Million Dollar Baby, a simply amazing film–you can click on the link to read more on my thoughts about it. […]