MILLION DOLLAR BABY

Winner at the Oscar's for Best Picture, Hilary Swank - Best Actress, Clint Eastwood - Best Director.

Someone told me Million Dollar Baby was about boxing- they were wrong. I went in with low expectations, despite all the Oscar buzz., I rarely agree with the critics, I really didn't agree with them on the movie Sideways (horrible!), but after seeing Million Dollar Baby then I must admit, on this one, they hit it on the nose(no pun intended - really!).

Hilary Swank is no longer the hermaphroditic troubled boy/girl from Boys Don't Cry, no, this time she plays a girl who comes from nothing and fights for everything. My insides welled up with joy as I watched her on screen, her performance was electrifying, brilliant, scintillating. I couldn't help but almost jump out of my seat during the fight scenes, every part of me was both shocked and delighted to see Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) pulverize her opponents again, and again, and again. With each punch, with each smack, I could feel the reckoning.

Clint Eastwood plays Frankie Dunn, a washed up trainer whose has a basket of his own demons to sort out. Morgan Freeman narrates the story and in the end you realize that the whole story is a letter that he is writing to Frankie Dunn's estranged daughter. You never really know what happened between Frankie and his daughter, but it isn't important. It leaves it up to the viewer fill in the blank with their own assumptions. (I assume that he neglected his daughter in pursuit of his dreams and his career like so many fathers do - oblivious to the harm that they inflict with neglect.)

I couldn't believe someone told me this movie was just "okay". I actually heard someone as I left the theater say, "I can't believe it was so depressing"- but it is only depressing if you don't look beyond what is happening on screen. The funny thing is that the movie doesn't try to hide it's message, rather, it puts it out there, right in your face like a thong bikini, there is no mystery here!

I don't normally like sad movies, and this movie does take a stroll down depression lane, but at it's heart, in it's very core, there is still so much joy, love, and it is just so dang REAL- you can't help but leave with a feeling that you just witnessed something great.

Like Schindler's List, or Saving Private Ryan, Million Dollar Baby leaves you with a bittersweet taste in your mouth, but when you walk away from a movie like this, you walk away knowing a little more about yourself .

Hilary Swank plays a boxer in Million Dollar Baby, but the movie is definitely not about boxing...