Line #83 Film/MillionDollarBaby


1	[[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/million_dollar_baby_poster.jpeg]]
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3	->''"Working the bag, boss."''
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5	''Million Dollar Baby'' is a 2004 American sports drama film directed by Creator/ClintEastwood, who also stars along with Creator/HilarySwank and Creator/MorganFreeman. Paul Haggis adapted the screenplay from the 2000 short-story collection ''Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner'' by F.X. Toole[[note]]the PenName of real-life boxing trainer Jerry Boyd[[/note]].
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7	Margaret "Maggie" Fitzgerald (Swank) is a down-and-out waitress from Missouri who's striving for a better life in Los Angeles. So, naturally, she does what all down-and-out waitresses do to help themselves out--she decides to become a professional boxer.
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9	The first portion of the movie deals with Maggie trying to get Frankie Dunn (Eastwood), who runs the Hit Pit gym, to train her into becoming a credible boxer. She eventually succeeds and is able to get Frankie and Eddie "Scrap Iron" Dupris (Freeman), another trainer and former boxer, to warm up to her.
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11	After a good deal of training Maggie is able to enter the world of professional women's boxing, where she becomes a remarkably successful fighter. Eventually, however, things take a turn for the worse.
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13	The film won four MediaNotes/{{Academy Award}}s for [[MediaNotes/AcademyAwardForBestPicture Best Picture]], [[MediaNotes/AcademyAwardForBestDirecting Best Director]] (Eastwood), [[MediaNotes/AcademyAwardForBestActressInALeadingRole Best Actress]] (Swank), and [[MediaNotes/AcademyAwardForBestActorInASupportingRole Best Supporting Actor]] (Freeman). Eastwood and Swank also won MediaNotes/{{Golden Globe\|Award}}s for Best Director and Actress, respectively.
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15	----
16	!!This film contains examples of:
17	%%* AbusiveParents: Maggie's mother is a sociopathic redneck idiot.
18	* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Frankie himself laughs at Barch's mocking of Shawrelle after Maggie tells Shawrelle off.
19	* AllThereInTheScript: Morgan Freeman's character's full name is "Eddie 'Scrap Iron' Dupris", but he's only ever called "Scrap" by the other characters.
20	* ArcWords: "Mo chuisle". Maggie doesn't find out what it means until the end of the movie.
21	* ArtisticLicenseMedicine: As powerful as they are, [[spoiler:the hospital scenes]] are a tad unrealistic. In RealLife, [[spoiler: hospitalized patients have every right to decline treatment. If they're attached to a breathing machine against their will, they don't have to attempt suicide or beg friends to euthanize them. They can just ask doctors to turn off their respirator. And no hospital would ever keep a patient sedated 24/7 just to stop them from committing suicide--they would more likely get them psychiatric counseling or put them on anti-depressants]].
22	* ArtisticLicenseSports:
23	** Maggie and her various opponents are never shown being given instructions by the referees or being made to touch gloves before the fights start. They simply enter the ring and wait for the bell to sound, without any of the standard procedures of sportsmanship of real-life professional boxing.
24	** Billy "The Blue Bear" is notorious for being a [[UnnecessaryRoughness dirty fighter]], but is somehow able to retain her title of champion despite this reputation. [[EstablishingCharacterMoment In her introductory fight]], she is shown restraining her opponent in a headlock, throwing her to the canvas - even knocking the referee down with her - and punches her again while her opponent is still down. All of these blatant fouls would result in immediate automatic disqualification in a real boxing match, but she has apparently been rarely if ever penalised for her actions. This is taken ever further during the title bout with Maggie, during which the Blue Bear commits many of these same illegal moves, including elbowing Maggie in the eye, but the referee only gives her warnings and a single point deduction for it.
25	** The one time the referee is shown stopping the fight to deduct a point, he leaves Maggie on the floor and completely turns his back on both fighters while he speaks to the judges, which allows the Blue Bear to punch Maggie again [[EasilyDistractedReferee without him seeing]]. When points are deducted in real boxing matches, the referee is required to present the offending fighter to the judges while the other is sent to wait in a neutral corner, specifically to prevent further illegal blows such as this from being exchanged.
26	* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: The movie generally makes a hash of the Irish it tries to use. Somewhat [[JustifiedTrope justified]] however in that none of the characters speak Irish, and Frankie, who most frequently attempts it, is trying unsuccessfully to learn the language to get in touch with his Irish heritage. Of particular note is the significant phrase "mo chuisle," which the film spells "mo cuisle" (nouns take a "h" after the second letter when they're possessed).
27	* TheAtoner: Frankie has made a point of attending Mass every day for 23 years straight, in penance for doing ''something'' that irreparably damaged his relationship with his daughter. As Father Horvak correctly points out, "The only man who comes to church that much is the kind that can't forgive himself for something."
28	* BraidsOfAction: Maggie and most of the other female boxers wear their hair in braids, presumably because it's practical.
29	%%* BreakTheCutie: Poor, poor Danger Barch.
30	%%* TheBully: Like Eddie discovers, Berry is this to poor Danger.
31	* BuryYourDisabled: Type 4, in which [[spoiler:Frankie finally kills Maggie after she begs him to end her suffering.]]
32	* CareerEndingInjury: Eddie had one at his 109th fight, losing one of his eyes. [[spoiler:Maggie takes a hit and falls onto a stool, breaking her neck and ending up a quadriplegic.]]
33	* CasualtyInTheRing:
34	** Eddie [[EyeScream lost the eyesight in one of his eyes]] years ago.
35	** [[spoiler: And Maggie becomes a quadraplegic due to a sucker punch after the bell rang for the round's end.]]
36	* ChekhovsGun:
37	** Maggie's story about [[spoiler:her dog Axel and her father putting it down when it was sick.]] Actually used more skillfully in the film than in the short story, in which she tells the story right before [[spoiler: asking Frankie to kill her]]. In the movie it comes a good hour beforehand.
38	** Maggie asks if [[spoiler:she should send some kind of gift to a girl whom she concussed in the ring, Frank dismisses it.]] It foreshadows that [[spoiler:injuries happen in the ring, and that the fighters that did the injuring aren't expected to turn up again in the rest of the movie.]]
39	** There are a lot of quick close-ups on the stool that Eastwood puts in the ring after each round leading up to [[spoiler:Maggie falling on it and breaking her neck]].
40	%%* {{Chiaroscuro}}: Used all over the place for dramatic effect.
41	%%* CoolOldGuy: Creator/ClintEastwood and Creator/MorganFreeman. Need I say more?
42	%%* CynicalMentor: Frankie Dunn.
43	%%* DeadpanSnarker: All three lead characters love to exchange sarcastic remarks.
44	* {{Determinator}}: No matter how discouraging her circumstances or the people around her get, Maggie refuses to give up on her dream of becoming a boxing champion. [[spoiler:After she's paralyzed, she's no less determined to end her own life.]]
45	* DisappearedDad: Maggie's father died long before she started her boxing career, and she shares several fond and/or bittersweet memories of him with Frankie over the first half of the film. His death was a sad turning point for the Fitzgerald family, causing Maggie's mother and sister to become completely welfare dependent and her brother to turn to crime, while Maggie herself looked for any escape route she could find.
46	* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: [[spoiler:When Frankie talks to Maggie's mom about how it would not be a good idea to see Maggie yet since they have been spending all week at Universal Studios instead of actually visting her, the mom goes on about how "[she] would have taken Maggie there if [she] could have, and it's not like Maggie is going anywhere". Tellingly, her own lawyer looks at her with amazement at both her stupidity and insensitive attitude.]]
47	* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Maggie becomes absolutely miserable due to becoming a quadriplegic and asks Frankie to kill her. He grants her wish and never returns to the gym again.]]
48	* EasilyDistractedReferee: Played with in the title fight. The referee clearly notices the illegal moves that the Blue Bear commits during the fight, such as her restraining Maggie in headlocks and throwing her to the canvas, but he leaves both fighters completely unattended while he speaks to the judges to deduct points, allowing the Bear to continue to assault Maggie while the latter is still down. Maggie then tries to take advantage of this in the third round, committing some of her own cheap shots to weaken the Bear's defences without the referee noticing[[spoiler:, but this results in the Bear sucker-punching her after the bell, causing her accident and subsequent paralysis]].
49	* EntitledBastard: Maggie's mother seems to think that the world, and Maggie in particular, owes her a fortune even though she's a welfare queen who makes no effort to improve her lot. After Maggie buys her a house with no strings attached, she has the audacity to scold Maggie for ''not giving her cash.''
50	%%* EtTuBrute: Willie Little abandoning Frankie early in the film after years of working with him for the chance to become rich and famous.
51	* AFatherToHisMen: Frankie does far more to those he trains than just teaching them how to box, helping Willie Little dealing with a car dealer and Maggie with her family [[spoiler:and injury]].
52	* FirstPersonPeripheralNarrator: Eddie spends his days as a glorified janitor and occasional trainer assistant.
53	* ForeignWrestlingHeel: Billie the Blue Bear, described as a "former East Berlin prostitute" with no regard for sportsmanship or the safety of opponents.
54	* {{Foreshadowing}}: "One of these days, that East German boxer is going to kill someone." [[spoiler:Sure enough, when Billie the Blue Bear is on the back foot in her title fight with Maggie, she punches her between rounds, causing her to break her neck on the wooden stool in her corner; Maggie is left paralysed, and Frankie ultimately grants her request to MercyKill her.]]
55	* FramingDevice: Eddie serves as the film's narrator, telling the story of Frankie training Maggie as a boxer and her burgeoning career, [[spoiler:CareerEndingInjury, and MercyKill at Frankie's hands]]. It is only in the film's final moments that we learn Eddie's narration is [[spoiler:the text of a letter he has written to Frankie's estranged daughter after Frankie's disappearance]].
56	* GenreShift: Starts as sports movie about a woman trying to improve her life by becoming a boxer and ends [[spoiler: as a tragedy about life-changing injury and assisted suicide]].
57	* TheHeroDies: [[spoiler:Maggie herself at the end in a MercyKilling from Frank.]]
58	%%* HeterosexualLifePartners: Frankie and Eddie.
59	* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Maggie's self-interested mother never signed the full title to the house granting her ownership of it, so that she would continue to rely on welfare. Maggie is aware of this and when her family comes back demanding title to everything, not caring at all about her crippling injury, she promises to sell the house if they dare come back, forcing them to leave emptyhanded.
60	* IdiotBall: After a disastrous first round with several blatant fouls, the referee openly warns the Blue Bear that she has one more chance to behave herself before he disqualifies her, but he never does so and lets the fight continue even when the Bear continues her UnnecessaryRoughness in the next round. If the referee had simply made good on his warning, [[spoiler:Maggie likely wouldn't have suffered her accident]].
61	* IHaveNoSon:
62	** Inverted, in the end, Maggie disowns her family after they demand the house and her assets with no sympathy towards her injuries.
63	** Also inverted by Frankie's daughter, who has estranged herself from him.
64	* InnocentlyInsensitive: When they first meet, Danger Barch happily assures Eddie that they'll get along, as he "ain't go no problem with niggers." Eddie takes it in stride, understanding that Barch means well and simply doesn't know any better.
65	%%* InspirationallyDisabled: Danger has shades of this.
66	* {{Jerkass}}:
67	** Maggie's family, especially her mother, shows ''astounding'' levels of [[PerfectlyCromulentWord dickitude]], with a generous helping of hypocrisy.
68	*** Her mother berates her for taking up boxing even though she's good at it and it's making her rich, insisting it's not something a lady should do. She herself is on welfare and doing nothing to improve her situation.
69	*** When she starts winning big purses, Maggie buys her mother a house. And what happens next? She berates Maggie for not giving her cash instead. If she's a homeowner, you see, she won't qualify for welfare anymore and she doesn't want to work. [[spoiler:Toward the end, we find out she never signed the ownership transfer paperwork even though she's living in the house, and it's a major plot point that Maggie still owns the house.]]
70	*** [[spoiler:When Maggie is paralyzed, her family visits her in the nursing home, ''after'' spending a week at Disneyland and Universal Studios, and only to try to get Maggie to sign over all her money to them. This apparently crosses a line, as Maggie tells them that not only are they not getting one dime, if they or their lawyer ever contact her again she'll sell the house out from under them.]]
71	** [[Creator/AnthonyMackie Shawrelle Berry]] runs his mouth off at Maggie and bullies Danger Barch throughout the movie.
72	* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:Downplayed: It's not shown that Billie the Blue Bear was disqualified, but the referee was getting annoyed with her constant breaking of the rules, and even threatened to disqualify her once. Billie was probably disqualified immediately once the doctors realized the injuries she had inflicted on Maggie after ''intentionally punching her between rounds''. Plus, since Maggie died as a result of her actions, Billie is likely going to be charged with involuntary manslaughter and sent to jail, which will end her fighting career for good.]]
73	* KillTheOnesYouLove: [[spoiler:Makes use of ChekhovsSkill as Frankie uses his expert knowledge of adrenaline to MercyKill her as she wants.]]
74	* MercyKill: Maggie tells Frankie a story of her father driving into the woods with their terminally ill dog Axel and returning alone; she noticed a shovel in the bed of his pickup truck and realised he had put Axel down and buried him. At the end of the film, she recalls the story again, [[spoiler:conveying to Frankie that she wants him to help her commit suicide; he finally obliges by switching off her respirator and giving her an injection of enough adrenaline to stop her heart]].
75	* NiceGirl: Maggie’s pleasant and unendingly friendly demeanor is what makes her fate even more heartbreaking.
76	* NoodleIncident: Something happened between Frankie and his daughter that put a serious strain on their relationship to the point where Frankie's daughter does not want anything to do with him.
77	* {{Oireland}}: Invoked. Frankie tries to rediscover his Irish roots by attending Catholic mass without understanding the substance of the religion, learning Gaelic reading Creator/WilliamButlerYeats (who mostly wrote in English), and giving Maggie an Irish boxing gimmick.
78	* TheOneWhoMadeItOut: Maggie's lucrative boxing career enables her to escape life with her hick family, run by a welfare queen who makes no effort to improve her lot and is interested only in getting Maggie's newfound fortune even when Maggie buys ''a house'' for them. [[spoiler:Even after she becomes a quadriplegic and her family visits to try to get title to her assets, Maggie is able to kick them out because she still owns their house and can sell it anytime she wants.]]
79	* OscarBait: Due to the ending, three huge stars as the main characters, and the usual triumph over adversity [[spoiler:turning into even [[FromBadToWorse more adversity]]]], this was a shoo-in.
80	* ParentalSubstitute: Frankie, for Maggie. Maggie gets the guidance and support she lacks from her mother; Frankie, in turn, gets a surrogate daughter as his own daughter is estranged.
81	* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Frankie makes some mildly sexist comments and initially refuses to do anything to help Maggie, though his opinion of her changes as the movie goes along. [[spoiler:Helping Maggie kill herself after she's paralyzed]] also at least partially counts for this.
82	* PrecisionFStrike:
83	-->'''Frankie Dunn:''' So is Jesus a Demigod?
84	-->'''Father Horvak:''' There are no Demigods, you fucking Pagan!
85	* ProdigalFamily: Maggie's loathsome trailer-trash family only sees her as a source of money once she starts winning fights. She buys her mother a house, who doesn't sign the ownership papers since it'd make her ineligible for welfare. The nadir would be the moment when they come to visit her in the hospital after she's paralyzed (''after'' spending the day at Disneyland) and try to work out a way for her to sign over all her winnings to them since she can't hold a pen. She finally kicks them out on realizing she doesn't owe them anything and threatens to sell the house (which they don't own) if they visit again.
86	* RetiredBadass: Scrap, despite his old age and blindness in one eye, still knocks out a much younger [[Creator/AnthonyMackie Shawrelle Berry]] with one good punch.
87	* SickeningCrunch: Used a few times.
88	** Maggie's nose is broken during one of her fights, leading to this noise when Frankie has to forcefully realign it between rounds.
89	** [[spoiler:It occurs a final time when Maggie breaks her neck on the corner stool in her fight with Billie.]]
90	* SlowMotionFall: Used most significantly in the last fight [[spoiler:with the fall that paralyzes Maggie for life]].
91	* SmallNameBigEgo: [[Creator/AnthonyMackie Shawrelle Berry]] comes off as an arrogant loudmouth throughout most of the movie, but considering Maggie's dig at his poor performance in his last fight (which she only said because he was bothering her) and the fact that the elder, blind-in-one-eye Scrap easily knocks him out (granted Scrap was implied to be no slouch in his prime) suggest Berry is not nearly as good of a boxer as his arrogance would suggest.
92	* ThereAreNoTherapists: [[spoiler:Towards the end, Maggie becomes so despondent that she attempts suicide by biting her tongue and begs Frankie to pull the plug on her. The hospital's first reaction is to keep her sedated 24/7 so she can't attempt suicide-instead of getting her the psychiatric help that she obviously needs.]]
93	* TongueSuicide: [[spoiler:After she's paralyzed, Maggie tries to commit suicide by [[TongueTrauma biting through her tongue.]]]]
94	%%* TrainingMontage: Maggie gets one, though minus the cheesy music.
95	* TrashyTrailerHome: Maggie's family are portrayed as irredeemable {{jerkass}} trash who only want to get money out of her. They all live in trailers in the Ozarks, of which Maggie (the only person shown to be interested in escaping) is the only decent inhabitant.
96	* {{Troll}}: After the first scene in which we see Frankie attending Mass, he is clearly enjoying winding up Father Horvak with questions about the Trinity: whether it means there is one God or three, if Jesus being the Son of God makes Him a demigod, and so on. Father Horvak's impatient reaction (capped by calling Frankie a "fucking Pagan" for suggesting Jesus was a demigod) makes it apparent Frankie has been doing this for years.
97	* UngratefulBastard: Maggie's mother and sister, who object to her buying a ''house'' for them for fear of losing their welfare and instead insist on money instead.
98	* TheUnreveal: We never learn ''what'', exactly, Frankie did that drove his daughter away. Apparently it was so bad that [[TheAtoner he's made a point of attending Mass nearly every day for 23 years straight]], and though he writes to her once a week, the letters consistently come back unopened and marked "Return to Sender".
99	* WhamLine: [[spoiler:When Maggie asks Frankie to let her die.]]
100	-->'''Maggie''': You remember what my Daddy did for Axle?
101	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: [[spoiler:It wasn't clear if Billie was punished for permanently injuring Maggie. Granted considering her cheap shot is what led to Maggie's paralysis, it's safe to assume Billie was probably punished severely for what she did. Not the least being losing her boxing license.]]
102	* WorstAid: [[spoiler:Frankie realizes how sub-par the quality of care is at the hospital Maggie goes to after her crippling injury and arranges to have her moved to a better one.]]
103	** Pressure ulcers are completely preventable and are a sign of negligence. Developing one to the point of [[spoiler:the limb becoming infected and needing amputation]] is a very low quality of care.
104	** Likely a subversion, Frankie clearly wants to believe that the doctors are incompetent because [[spoiler:they can't fix Maggie's spine. He eventually has to accept that she's just too badly injured to be fixed.]]
105	* YouAreNotAlone: Frankie says words to this effect to Maggie after she [[spoiler:is estranged from her family.]]
106	* YoureNotMyFather: Maggie aims this squarely at her mother and siblings, seeing right through their scheme to claim title to everything she owns and never working to help themselves. Having tired of their self-serving ways, she warns them never to return or she'd sell the house she still holds the title to.

Context Film / MillionDollarBaby