Entertainment

Million Dollar Baby deserves the title 

By Cyd Zeigler jr.
Outsports.com

While there are five films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar this year, three of them are like being the Devil Rays, Orioles and Blue Jays in the AL East: There without a chance in hell of winning.

The Best Picture battle this year is between The Aviator and Million Dollar Baby – two films based on sports that get little fanfare in most parts of the world.

Some may take issue with the idea of piloting as a sport. But, as Patricia Nell Warren has shown us with two wonderful pieces about a pilot and a balloonist, those who take to the air are as much gripped by the thrill and heroism of sport as those athletes who keep their feet on the ground or in the water.

One might argue that The Aviator is more about the sport of spending cash – in the film, it is intertwined with aviating. Leonardo DiCaprio's Howard Hughes is a relatively insane man who dives deeper and deeper into insanity as the planes he builds get faster and – infamously – bigger.

While the mind of Hughes is a complex issue, the film is undermined by director Martin Scorsese's simple handling of it. Over and over, DiCaprio stares into the camera with a crazed look and stutters. Over and over. The same thing. Over and over. There's little arc to DiCaprio's portrayal of the falling of the mind of Hughes – except that these crazy moments happen more and more often as the film progresses. Without that important character development, the audience is left with little emotion for the crazed millionaire.

While The Aviator plays it safe, Million Dollar Baby is a unique film. It's a tear-jerker, but not in the normal sense. Hollywood's typical sob story involves a down-on-his-luck schlub, who has more back-story than a Yankees-Red Sox match-up, who wins it all in the end. This film is far from that.

One of the most overlooked components of good filmmaking is what the director doesn't show, what he doesn't tell you. While filmmakers today try to wow and shock us by showing us more and more, the real craftsmen understand that holding back develops an attachment to the film by the viewer.

There is certainly back-story in this film. Clint Eastwood's Frankie Dunn has a troubled past: Anybody who goes to Mass every single day and writes his daughter every week only to have it returned – well, Dunn's priest says it best: "The only person who comes to church that much is the kind who can't forgive himself for something."

In the film, though, we never find out what that something is. We never learn what Dunn did that was so terrible. The film fades to black and we still have no idea why his daughter won't speak to him. The audience is left to wonder what in their lives might lead to eternal unforgiveness. The film lingers long after the smell of buttered popcorn fades away because the filmmakers decided that less was more. It worked.

In one of the most convincing performances I can remember, Hillary Swank unleashes a young Maggie Fitzgerald that is sweet, mischievous, determined and unforgettable.

When Fitzgerald first meets Dunn, after his prize fighter has put away another opponent, he tells her he doesn't train girls – as though they are lesser athletes, as though they don't matter in his mind. I couldn't help feeling a connection to that; I wonder what the set-in-his-ways Dunn might tell a gay boxer. The disapproval she receives from her family for being different rang true to me. The me-against-the-world, make-it-on-her-own attitude that shows through in her was incredibly familiar.

And then there’s the surprise. Few filmmakers would take the risk that Eastwood (who produced, directed, starred in and even wrote the score) took in this movie. Taking calculated risks in sports can often lead to victory. Whether this film takes home the golden statue Sunday night, he can consider this venture a success.

The Academy has a distinct choice to make. It can reward safe, bland storytelling or it can anoint a risky, well-made film.

They will make one of two films their Best Picture of the Year: a forgettable biopic that plays by the rules, or a haunting film that breaks them.