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MILLION DOLLAR BABY The best picture of 2004 is an instant classic,
much like writer-director-producer-star Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven.
But whereas that revisionist Western deconstructed genre conventions, turning
them inside out to expose the inherent contradictions and compromises, this
movie leaves many of the cliches intact, deriving its power not by upending
them but by burrowing so deeply that it feels like we're witnessing familiar
sights for the very first time. Eastwood stars as a gym owner who's urged by
his only friend (Morgan Freeman) to train a young woman (Hilary Swank) determined
to make it as a boxer, yet what starts out as a familiar (if brilliantly told)
story eventually changes course and emerges as a profound and moving filmgoing
experience. There's very little about this movie that feels extraneous -- it's
tight, taut storytelling, anchored by three astonishing performances and helmed
by a man still able to teach Hollywood's young punks a thing or two. 
A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT The ad material wants us to believe that Engagement,
about a woman (Audrey Tautou) searching for her lover at the end of World War
I, is cut from the same cloth as pictures like The English Patient and
Reds, movies that place grand romances against the backdrop of wars and
social upheaval. But director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's movie is a different kind
of epic, with a light touch and an offbeat attitude that strip the story of
much of its gravitas and instead replace it with a freewheeling flippancy. Engagement
isn't as overtly funny as Jeunet's previous films (including Amelie),
but its comic quota is still there, resting behind its players' character quirks
or within the tight choreography of several of the more elaborate set pieces.
The result is a real curio: often delightful, often tragic, yet never as penetrating
as one might expect.
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