Million Dollar Baby

Clint Eastwood is one of the best American directors working today. His films are concise, powerful, passionate and appear effortless. Some of them don't quite work, but there's a winning power to him. He shuns budgets and makes films about pained people. Those in Million Dollar Baby are faultlessly characterised and live in our hearts and minds.

Frankie Dunn (Eastwood) is a boxing trainer, who runs a gym that only just breaks even. His past is clouded, but he refuses to compromise with his fighters - he doesn't like taking risks with them.

Maggie Fitzpatrick (Hilary Swank) walks in with a dream of escaping from mediocrity and insists that he train her, as one of his fighters. "Scrap" (Morgan Freeman - an excellent counterpoint to Eastwood's world weary cynicism) narrates the story in a letter to Frankie's estranged daughter, echoing his prior work in The Shawshank Redemption. To quote his description of Maggie: "She grew up knowing one thing - she was trash."

Frankie refuses to train her, yet, due to her determination, toughness and heart, as well as the gym's troubled cash flow problem, eventually takes her under his wing.

Million Dollar Baby's central plot could have been written and directed by Frank Capra in the Forties, but rare is the film that takes soap opera ideas and delivers a treasure. The characters are what make the film so immeasurably successful.

Frankie is revealed early to be a smart ass to his local priest, only for the audience to find out later how it counterpoints his responsibility as Maggie's friend and true family. This is about how people deal with guilt, through self-attrition.

Skilled and economical storytelling delivers a mighty wallop in getting through a lot of exposition in a short time, constructing little moments, such as how an actor changes expression by just using their eyes, or the fashion in which they are lit, framed and photographed, or smartly edited montages, using movement and timing to show progression.

Even characters who don't get much screen time, like Maggie's trailer park family, explain an awful lot. The way they use their cruel language to open up her concealed wounds explains as much as any lengthy discourse between Frankie and Maggie and demonstrates Eastwood's efficiency as a director, scraping away surface niceties until the story is bare. The idea that Eastwood embodies his work and speaks through his own voice is something that endears his films to me, as though I know him better that way.

This time he has crafted an impeccable film, which essentially lays down the gauntlet. "Look now, this is how to do it." He's screaming a challenge to Hollywood. For a 75-year-old man to run rings (pun intended) around an audience, numbed by cheap comedy and expensive explosions, is impressive. He tells a tale of strong-willed, decent people, how they make their choices in life and, especially, how they live with those choices.

His films have been consistently improving, now that he has no wish to prove anything to anyone. They have a richness and texture that I find as beguiling as it is brilliant. There are no false notes, no dull sentimentality, as he leads his characters to their logical, difficult conclusions.

I have seen too many films that could have been great, instead of good, because they are diluted by weak endings, due to producers not having the guts to deal with their issues. Thankfully, Eastwood's pull at Warner gave him the clout to make the film the way he wanted, even if he had to find half the money himself.

A trio of smashing performances, hard-boiled and bonded by respect, given and taken in the boxing ring, adds strength in depth. This is a film with secrets, with faith in old-fashioned storytelling, that invites us to share in human conflict, humour, character and success.

Million Dollar Baby is a shattering masterpiece.