It’s not really about boxing either: the sport is the device used to tell the story of Frank’s search for redemption, and of the high and low tides of his relationship with Maggie. But this one isn’t even about Maggie, it’s more about the men surrounding her, especially her trainer, Frank.
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Girlfight), or at least be full of women (e.g. Perhaps a film about women in sports should be made by a woman (e.g. The marketing for the film certainly led me to expect a film about “women in sports” but perhaps that was the easiest of the many themes for them to portray. I don’t know if the original story was about the gender gap in sports, or if the main character just happened to be female.
But Frank’s initial reluctance to train “girls” was glossed over once Maggie had persuaded him with her sheer persistence. When I first started watching Million Dollar Baby and the main characters were introduced, I thought aha, if Gran Torino was Eastwood’s film about accepting people from other races, this is his gender equivalent: way to satisfy Hollywood commentators and awards panels. There are other themes and elements too, though and they don’t all weave together well. It’s a rags-to-riches story, with a large chunk of relationship drama and a smaller – but no less significant – chunk of a cautionary tale.
On the surface, Million Dollar Baby is a film about novice boxer Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) and her progression as far as a life-changing title fight under the training of an old-fashioned manager Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood). Million Dollar Baby boasts wonderful acting and character writing, but a frustrating treatment of themes within a plot adapted from two short stories.