Million Dollar Baby Review

Wow…
I saw this movie for the first time this past weekend and I was left speechless.
Let me start by analyzing the artistic aspect of the movie itself. The lighting in the movie played a huge part throughout. Depending on the lighting in the gym it would set the mood for that specific scene. It is key to note that Maggie was usually in the light and I think that's because she brought a sense of life and in a way light to what was a lifeless scene. The constant narration throughout by Morgan Freeman gives perspective to each scene and of course at the end we realize that the constant voice throughout the movie serves a purpose that I am not willing to to expand upon for those of you that haven't seen the movie…

Now for the tough part, which is to somehow discuss the ethics and morals throughout the movie without picking a side. The first question is if it was really alright that Frankie wouldn't train girls and the way he viewed female boxing clearly as something less than it really was? It is clear the biologically males and females are not structured the same so a competition between men and women who play at the same level would be quite unfair, although it should be kept in mind that women can beat men in sports. Frankie eventually gave in and broke his rule of not training women after he saw that Maggie brought the fighting attitude with her to every fight and that she wouldn't be willing to cave in, this of course was something that worried Frankie as we later find out from Eddie (Morgan Freeman). The loaded question here is if men and women can truly be treated as equals when there are certain clear differences? It is possible to answer the question in a very simple and clear manner by saying no, but couldn't it be argue that certain activities and competitions such as sports are geared more towards men than they are for women? A great example is basketball, which consists of skills and height. Males on average are taller than females, which makes the fact that the rim is 10 feet above the ground a little bit of an unfair advantage . I think that if men and women were compared and placed in situations that were proportionally fair for each then the comparison would be possible.

The second ethical issue/moral issue is that of Billie "The Blue Bear" who hit Maggie illegally throughout their fight together and of course delivered quite the blow to her at the end of the fight. What Billie did can be seen as something completely immoral just because she was simply fighting dirty. It could be argued that boxing as a sport promotes that competitive environment due to the nature of the sport, but that final punch thrown by Billie clearly carried certain implications with it that she couldn't have imagined. The issue here is how can we make certain decision if we can never truly control the outcome of the decision? In any decision we make it's possible to have a negative and positive outcome, and although we might have an idea of which is better to take how can we ever truly know that it's the right choice? When Billie made the decision to take a shot at Maggie after the round had ended could she have possibly imagined the following chain of events? Taking it a step further is it possible then to ever justify our next action if deep down we have a reasonable enough doubt? I thought long enough and came to the conclusion that it would be easier to just not make any decision or pick a side, until I realized that by doing that I would be taking a decision with implications that I might not be able to take into account, in which case I realized that I was screwed no matter what I do.

The third moral question is of course the decision that Frankie is faced with at the end of the movie. He based his choice off of what Maggie wanted, but how can one follow through on such an action in general? (I am trying not to say exactly what happened for those who actually want to see the movie) What if the person asks you to, but you love them? Does the idea of human nature being selfish come into play or do we have to overlook our selfishness and try to make a decision based off what the person in that current situation would want? Frankie based his decision off of what Maggie wanted and although it could possibly bring him endless regret he knew that it would maker her happy. What if the situation had been different though? If Maggie hadn't have been able to communicate what she wanted to Frankie or anyone else how would one make that decision? If she was in a coma then of course the decision would be different because you don't know if she will come out of it or what she wanted deep down and it would make for further complications. Continuing with the idea of human selfishness I will try to tie in the Fitzgerald family as well because they clearly lacked ethics as a whole. They had been in town for almost a week knowing Maggie's situation and decided to visit on the last day with a lawyer with the intentions of taking advantage of Maggie's financial situation. As a mother or even as a family member how can one sink so low as to try and do what the Fitzgerald family tried to do? Does human nature truly get to that point of selfishness or was that one extreme case that rarely occurs? It can be justified that the Fitzgerald family wasn't financially fortunate, but Maggie had done what she could to try and take care of her family and even with that unselfish attitude they tried to take more from her. This then leads me to the question do we enable selfishness in each other? By being kind to others does that enable them to take advantage of us? I think that there are a variety of ways of looking at this question and in various different contexts which makes the question hard to answer, but at least in the context presented in the movie the Fitzgerald family aside from Maggie lacked any decency, morals, and or ethical values.

Overall the film itself was inspirational throughout, but it was packed with endless amount of moral and ethical values that I couldn't possibly cover in the span of this blog (Shawrelle vs Danger). I don't really suggest this movie for anybody that isn't willing to go through a bit of an up and down roller coaster and accept that life isn't always full of happy endings.
Great performances though.