Million Dollar Baby

Winner of 4 Academy Awards:
Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, and Best Picture
(Hillary Swank, Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman)


Mo Cushla means “my darling”, “my blood”…

Maggie Fitzgerald (Hillary Swank), a 31 year-old waitress came to see Frank Dunn (Clint Eastwood) to ask him to train her as a fighter. Being rejected so many times and again did not make her subdued. She was instead working twice as hard, with a little help from Mr.Scrap (Morgan Freeman). He was once too, Frank’s fighter.

It did not take Maggie too long to get noticed. She was indeed a very talented fighter despite the fact that she started a bit too old.
Frank agreed to take her on (after losing his own fighter to another manager), and he trained her really hard. Nothing tires her.

She soon became a champion. She won each and every one fight she was competing in, and she always knocks her opponents down in the first round.

Offers pouring in from other fighters’ managers to set her up to fight against their meanest heavy weight fighters. Frank turned them all down. Until one day, Mr.Scrap set Maggie up to meet Mickey, the famous manager who took Frank’s fighter to get his title. He wanted to arrange for a fight with other heavy champions. She didn’t budge. She turned down Mickey’s offer before he even spoke. As always her style. She said she’d never leave Frank’s side.

Frank, a father who is rejected by her own daughter soon gets attached to Maggie. He named her “Mo Cushla”. And her new nickname was chanted over and over in each and every fight she was in. She traveled far, and she never lost.

Until one day, Frank set her up to fight against the meanest fighter from East German, Billie Blue Bear. Billie is the kind of fighter who does not heed rules. She’s a kind of fighter who does not care if her opponents die in the ring by her bare hands.

That night in Vegas, Mo Cushla fought Blue Bear. She almost wins, if only she did not turn herself away, and opened herself for attacks. The bell rang, and the two fighters were told to approach their corners, but Billie knocked Maggie from the back. She fell and broke her neck.

That night, was the end of Mo Cushla’s career as a fighter.

That night, was the end of Maggie Fitzgerald.

She was paralyzed.
She was hurt.
She lost.


***

Life is never fair.

When we were just collecting other’s people’s leftovers, we were not happy.
We had our own dreams and we were so desperately seeking our greatness.
When we were the toughest fighter, we were happy, we had what we want.
But the dearest ones tested us, they mocked us.
When we lost our greatness, we were again, not happy.
We were humiliated.

Life is always mean.

It always takes away the people most dear to us.
It always tests us with hard decisions.
It always tests our faith.

But life is all we got.
The Million Dollar Baby, Mo Cushla, might choose not to endure anymore, but it’s up to us to decide.
Will we fight its cruelty?
Or will we let it defeat us?

Up to us...