Million Dollar Baby

Saw this today in the theatre. Haven't heard so much snuffling and nose blowing and clearing of throats in a theatre since I don't remember when. I personally haven't cried so much in a movie theatre since seeing Love, Actually, but admitting that might give you the wrong idea about this film. There is nothing sappy or melodramatic about Million Dollar Baby. The characters are intriguing, and brutally honest and real, and the dialogue is too. The style is also very important; the use of light and shadow complements the settings and the scenarios in very interesting ways.

But it doesn't take too long before this film starts breaking your heart in little ways, and then it just keeps doing it, serving up these understated, aching scenes, and then the third act of the film just devastates you. I can't say much specific without spoiling it. One final note: I hate boxing, and if you do too, just go see this anyway. You can close your eyes during the boxing scenes. I could tell from Ebert's review that something major happens, and so I avoided any other reviews. Now that I've seen it, I went and checked to see what some of my fave reviewers had to say. James Berardinelli (http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/movies/m/million_dollar.html) notes that excellent films are ones you have to recover from. I agree with him that this is definitely one of those.