It *is* about her triumph, Mike.
While I can understand how it offends the sensibilities of some, MDM remains the most moving experience I've had in the movies in a year.
Flame away.
Still I'm glad I went though..
Indeed it is, not to victory, but to total and ultimate defeat, chewing out her tongue not once, but twice, and encouraging Eastwood's character to essentially kill her with an adrenalin shot. It's suicide and euthanasia, in one, two for the money. Lots of people have suffered more, and still see the sense in trying to live and encourage others around them to live well.
Eastwood is clearly being dishonest. I don't know if he thinks that's convincing. Of course it's political. The boxing is only the setup for the real story. But you don't see the story in the trailers and public promotion. It's a film about the anti-hero becoming in fact the villain. Perhaps it's a take on the man with no name, and how he ends up. It's similar to Unforgiven in the way that the gunfighter ends up, screaming at the whole town. But there is no light at the end of the tunnel, or the diner. It's just depression, manically so, more every day until gloom forces one to flee off camera to points unknown, perhaps his own suicide. It's sort of the atheist's dilemma as the reality of his beliefs catch up with him. Maybe that's behind a lot of Eastwood films, and he himself didn't realize it.
I've not seen it. But anything with Clint Eastwood in it, is on my viewing list.
And I like Hilary Swank too. She's not an actress who capitalised fully on her last 'Oscar' and just took 'any old role' in the next big budget movie. She's a bit more discerning in her movie picks, I think.
I'll definitely go see Million Dollar Baby!