Not quite a review but..

Million Dollar Baby is all it claims to be and perhaps is even more heart wrenching than I orginally thought.

The story line is simple but has enough layers which are strung together with almost painful ease. Franke Dunne (Clint Eastwood) is a hard man, who's core is actually the real thing and knows his stuff(read the sport of boxing) real well.

Maggie Fitzrgerald (Hillary Swank) is determined to be a fighter, that too one trained by Dunne, She is a a doggedkly determined woman, ready do what it takes, to fight. Eddie Dupris (Morgan Freeman), a boxer in his hey days, still ruing that he only fought 109 matches, looks after Dunne's gymnasium now.

The movie is slow and the lighting making the film bleaker than it actually is. The lighting creates a lot of the mood for the film along with music, which is also (at least) written by Clint Eastwood. It's haunting and dark and remains with you as you walk out..

The film raises many (ethical for some, moral for others) questions, most of them arising the last fifteen minutes. Most hyped (Read Oscar winning) films do not live upto its hype for this one sends shivers, may be for sheer lack of melodrama in the film.

Listening to Gaelic in a sanitised hospital environment can be chilling, Danger's inability and will to fight are scary, Eddie's narrative in a deep, sombre voice from time to time remind you that this is a story being told, not witnessed. One shot (among many ones where light plays with shadows) that I found very memorable is towards the end when Eddie walks into Dunne's office and the camera pans the fourth wall for the first time in the film showing various accolades and memorabilia of boxing. Boxing was indeed Dunne's first love.

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For me the film is divided not at its logical end or beginning or middle but at that very moment when my friend sitting next to me broke into loud, gut wrenching sobs. No, this is not just a girl breaking down while seeing the film.

This is is a girl who's sister has been unwell and in and out of hospitals for the better part of the last two years. This girl, who's sister is showing no signs of getting better and slowly feels her spirit melting away. This girl, who's sister constantly wishes her life ended instead of being ill and torturing her family members. This girl.

So when Maggie asks Dunne to do to her, what her daddy did to Axle, before any of us could react, my friend broke down. She broke down with such vehement sobs that in that one moment I realised how painful the film was for her and the parallels in her life and the film were killing her.

Crying in films is not neccessarily a measure of how well a film is made (SLB's Black is often citied as an example) but when a strong woman breaks down, her tears actually convey the depth of her pain. For that reason alone I will never be able to forget Million Dollar Baby.

Here is to wishing her a speedy recovery of mind, body and soul.