The boy and I saw Million Dollar Baby today. I don't want to say too much for folks who haven't seen it, so read on, no spoilers here. I really liked it. I was taping Mystic River the other day for my mom, and I was doing other stuff, but I watched some of it again. The thing I noticed in seeing both these Clint Eastwood-directed films is how Eastwood has become a very no-frills director. In a good way. There's no showy opening sequence meant to titillate the viewer. The movie starts as if this story has been going on forever but the camera just got turned on. He lets the story, which is inevitably dramatic, unfold and speak for itself, without attempting to bang us over the head with it, as many mainstream filmmakers do. During a climatic moment, there's no typical swell of dramatic music screaming "Hey! Wake up! Something really scary / horrible / shocking /significant / unexpected is about to happen!" He just lets it happen, and I appreciate that. As a viewer, he makes me feel like he's acknowledging that I am smart and perceptive and don't need the dumbed-down version. I also love his attention to detail. Like when two characters are standing in a hallway, and the sign next to them is directions for evacuation-for how to get out. The look on Clint Eastwood's face when he's in the waiting room, and she gets up. I caught on right away that the camera was somehow preoccupied with the little stool that he put in the corner of the ring for the boxer to sit on. I thought maybe it was a visual way to show our heroine's rise in the ranks (from dingy old stool to painted stool to Everlast-sponsored stool). It figures prominently later. I loved the shots where someone walks into the frame but is only half in the light, and the boxer and the boxing bag are spotlighted. I appreciate that the film did not portray working class people as inherently noble, flawless, or one-dimensional, which is typical Hollywood. The acting was, for the most part, subtle, lived-in, real. I loved the relationship between Morgan Freeman's black former boxer and Hilary Swank's female boxer, and how what he went through years before was repeating itself in a similar way for her. I loved the message about chosen family, and the father-daughter stuff, how they gently nudge and challenge each other on some fronts, but steer clear and respect on others. I think I could have done without the voice-overs, but I'm not sure, would have to see it again. It made me miss my dad a lot. He was a movie lover, and would have definitely seen this before me and I could call him and we could talk for an hour about it. There were scenes that hit home for me, but where the roles were reversed. It is so painful for me to write even those two sentences. It has sent me into a fit of tears. I think I need to call the boy from the kitchen now.