Sometimes, you can gauge the power of a film by what the audience does once the credits roll.
Do they start talking right away? Do they murmur to each other? Do they sit in silence? Are they laughing, crying, or shaking their heads?
When I saw "Million Dollar Baby," I only heard one comment while the screen went black, and it was, "Oh my god."
To interpret that remark, you'd need to see the film, which has garnered seven Oscar nominations, including best picture, best director, and best actor and actress for all three leading performers.
Director Clint Eastwood plays Frankie, a former boxer-turned-trainer who meets minimum-wage waitress Maggie (Hilary Swank) when she shows up work out at his gym, despite his reluctance to train a woman.
As Maggie improves her boxing skills, with a little help from former fighter and maintenance man, Eddie (Morgan Freeman), the young boxer and aging trainer gradually form a father-daughter relationship that is as heart-wrenching as it is beautiful.
If this description doesn't sound like anything new or remarkably special to you, it's because "Million Dollar Baby" is not carried by its plot line.
This is a story that transcends itself; the stellar performances of Swank, Eastwood and Freeman brilliantly echo human grief, love, pain and redemption.
Eastwood plays a man who lives as if he's lost everything - his daughter doesn't speak with him, his best boxers leave him for glory-seeking managers, and his regrets are shrouded in mystery.
Yet Eastwood manages to let the most pained sides of Frankie come through, both as actor and director.
Frankie's figure is often silhouetted from the neck up, emphasizing both his pain and his fear, and he looks at Maggie as if she were his own lost daughter, with a glimmer of both protection and awe.
As Maggie, Swank fights with the same branch of pain, a 32-year-old waitress whose immediate family is hardly doing well - although they come off representing the worst stereotype of ignorant welfare swindlers, their existence is real, and the relationship raw.
One of the most well-acted and amazing scenes occurs when Maggie's mother Earline reacts with frustration when newly wealthy Maggie buys her a house.
Freeman is as equally impressive as the rest of the cast, acting as a middle man to the relationship between Maggie and Frankie, often only seen in the background of shots watching the two converse.
It would be a shame to watch the best picture award pass over this film for Academy favorites like "The Aviator."
As a whole, with such impressive character development, acting and directing, "Million Dollar Baby" is undoubtedly the strongest contender for the title of 2004's best film of the year.
