Before she crossed paths with boxing coach Frankie, Maggie's life was reclusive, she was born into a muddy family, no one treated her like a person, and in her 30s, she was still in her 30s as a waitress, taking home leftover food for dinner.
God's only gift to her was probably that she loved boxing, her dreams had been buried in her heart, and she was slightly gifted, and she met Coach Frankie at an age when a boxer was supposed to retire.
As if catching the only straw of life, with that perseverance, everything seemed to start to become hopeful, and under the guidance of the coach, she gradually became a well-known boxer, knocking down one opponent after another. Just when everything seemed so smooth, in a multi-million dollar world championship competition, Maggie encountered a shameless sneak attack from her opponent, resulting in a fractured spine and paralyzing her whole body.
I'm sorry, but there is no miraculous recovery that people like, come back to compete, and counterattack the bridge section that got millions of dollars.
Maggie had to have her leg amputated because of pressure sores, was injured by her loved ones, and survived on a ventilator without quality, and eventually she turned to Frankie, the only coach who cared about her, to help her unplugged her respirator, ending her short life. This is destined not to be an ordinary inspirational film.
Although it is called "Million Dollar Baby", don't be deceived by its name, there is no million dollars here, no beautiful baby, no counterattack reversal, and even some helplessness, but it may be precisely because of this that it stood out in a number of commercial movies and swept the four Oscar awards that year.
Director Clint Eastwood chooses to interpret his understanding of life in a seemingly destructive way, where counterattack and perfection may mostly exist in fiction, while cruelty and brevity may be the norm.
Is it a long and meaningless life, or a short life of burning passion? Do you want to live with dignity, or do you want to die with dignity? This may be the thinking question left to us by the director.
If it weren't for her love of boxing, if she hadn't fought for this only chance, Maggie's life might have been longer. And in the long life, it is the lack of father's love, the mother's ruthlessness, with dreams but has long confessed, all day long to pick up leftovers on the plate to barely survive, so that the day like the walking dead, can only be regarded as life, but can not be called really alive.
In the short life created by boxing, although the training is extremely hard, Maggie's body and mind are free, and she can fight for love, even if the pain is better than every day.
In the time that Frankie coached and father and friend, they both filled in the missing love for each other.
The coach's heart disease was his daughter's rejection of him, and for decades, the letters he wrote to her daughter were returned unchanged. He was used to opening the door and picking up the letters on the ground, and the humble training hall was as hollow and sparse as his heart, until he met Maggie.
He seriously taught Maggie how to punch, how to dodge, including what to eat, and gradually, Maggie found unprecedented care in this seemingly indifferent old man, which allowed her to temporarily forget her mother's bitterness. Why didn't Frankie feel the warmth of her daughter in Maggie?
At the Million Dollar Championship, he gave her a green trench coat embroidered with a Gaullean mocuishle, and Maggie had been wondering what it meant. Eventually Frankie told her what mocuishle meant—my beloved, my flesh and blood...
After saying that, he firmly injected Maggie with the drug, and Maggie's face was always smiling, and this smile was still so bright until Frankie turned and walked into the darkness.
When I watched this movie, I remembered a picture book by Japanese writer Yoko Sano, "The Cat Who Lived 1 Million Times"
The beautiful tabby cat has lived 1 million times, changed various owners, but has never been happy, life seems to be just a string of numbers, it does not know why it lives, and it is not afraid of any form of death. Once, it became a stray cat, and finally it could be itself once, and it boasted every time: "I am a cat who has died 1 million times!" "Later it met a white cat, the white cat was cold and arrogant but warm, only treated it as an ordinary cat, silently accompanied, they loved each other for a lifetime, the white cat died, it also died painfully, this time it did not come back to life.
A life of freedom and love is enough once.
In addition to freedom and love, if there are any shortcomings in life, it is only dreams.
Maggie was 31 years old when she learned boxing, so it was hopeless to start learning a skill, not to mention that she didn't have any foundation, but wasn't the routine meant to break? The 31-year-old Maggie still reached the national championship, one step away from the championship.
If you set limits for yourself, the whole world will be against you.
Li Yinhe, China's first female sociologist of research sex, was just 30 years old when she went to the United States to study, and when she came across a subject she loved and decided to dedicate her life to, she was 36 years old, she said:
All my life, until 1988, when I was 36 years old, I was preparing, and after returning from the United States, I was able to find the career direction I loved the most. 36 is late enough, but I'm still lucky because the luckiest person is doing exactly what he loves to do in eight hours.
Since she decided the direction of scientific research that she loved, Li Yinhe threw herself into the research work with a fanatical momentum, and in only two years she conducted more than ten empirical studies in one go, compiling a whole collection of papers around topics such as marriage, family, love, and celibacy, which stunned sociologists from Taiwan.
If 36 years old is not too big, the 81-year-old Wang Deshun told us that life, as long as you dare to think and dare to do, it is not too late.
Wang Shunde began to learn English at the age of 44, Studied pantomime at the age of 49, began fitness at the age of 50, learned to ride a horse at the age of 65, trained his abs at the age of 70, rode a motorcycle at the age of 78, and went on the catwalk at the age of 79....
Years have rewarded him not only with a strong body and a red face, but also as an attempt and satisfaction of life dreams.
Admittedly, we all know that dreams are not always achievable, and even if you keep insisting, you may not be able to get them for life because you are not talented enough and the opportunities have not arrived.
But what if it can't be achieved?
Other films teach us how to succeed using mainstream values, and this film seems to tell us how to face death and failure.
On some level, life is actually a battle that must be lost: we will all be painful, we will grow old, we will die, we will lose everything, sooner or later. How do we face the pain of never being able to reach a high place, or even falling from a high place? All of this leads us to an ultimate proposition: how we should face death, how to die with dignity.
Ole wrote at the end of his Meditations:
You've already experienced life here, and there are five or fifty years left in your life, so what does it matter? A three-act play can also be regarded as a whole play...
What is a full life? In this play, to be able to fight for a dream once, a person's life is complete, no matter what the ending, at least, he got his shot.
Maggie eventually chose death, and though life was short, she said, she had seen the whole world. People cheered for her, shouted her name, she went to magazines, she experienced the process of fighting for her dreams, and she also experienced pain and love. She got what she wanted, even what she didn't dare to think about before, and got it all... She has resolutely chosen to leave her life "in the moment", so what if she leaves at this moment?
Every day someone dies, they may not have fought for their dreams, but they also have a stable life, and sighing is the end.
But there is a kind of person in the world, we call it a "warrior", who has given his all for his dream at least once, who may have been injured for it, who may be dying before he can succeed, and do you know what will be in his mind at the last moment?
He'll think: Hey, I think I'm doing a good job!
I am Ariel, a psychological counselor, pay attention to me, you will get the emotional and psychological dry goods updated every day, let me accompany you to know yourself and understand the world~