Million Dollar Baby

⭐ 9.5/10

(Originally written by Joseph)

Watching this was a little overdue for me considering the fondness Bean's has for it. I really like Clint Eastwood movies. I'm not sure he's a artistic genius necessarily, but each of his movies have a little of what a want. They're pretty simple in terms of narrative, but usually are gritty and go straight for the jugular for emotional experience. This one is a true gut punch and had me thinking hard about the difficult questions it asks.

This is a clear 2 act movie, one act being a sports movie, and the other a drama. I liked the sports movie aspect pretty well, and it did a nice job mostly avoiding the cliches. I kinda wish the main character had a little more to overcome, but I suppose that would have indeed just made it more cliched. The drama was also mostly good. It feel like it tried a little too hard to balance too many different threads, each one having to pay off at some point, but in the end it really only came down to one storyline and that one was amazing. For all the little subplots I wasn't crazy about, I thought the final one overcame it all.

So yeah, I absolutely recommend this one. I feel like it narrowly walked the line between great drama and emotional exploitation, but I do think the questions are worth exploring and it never goes over the top in simply trying to make the audience cry. It's a rollercoaster, similar to me to The Fault in Our Stars, but in the end a fruitful watch.