Million Dollar Baby

An IMDb Top 250 movie

The advantage of writing a movie review a week after you've seen the movie is that it tells you how memorable the film is. "Million Dollar Baby" is a simple, basic story that, like its protagonist boxer, dances around us for a while, but then punches us out with a swift, devastating blow.
Clint Eastwood created a film in which people are driven by grim determination, not upbeat ambition. The heroine is a young woman desperately struggling to get out of her life through boxing, and for some time, she succeeds. But there's something ominous about her standing there alone in the boxing school in the middle of the night, facing the punching bag.
This film is a tragedy, but Eastwood tells it without sentimentalism or elaborate storylines. Instead it's straight and sharp like a razor, one more tale of quiet desperation in a world full of such tales. A movie that can break your heart without you feeling like it played a cheap trick on you-- that's what good storytelling, and good moviemaking, is all about.