“Million Dollar Baby” is a film about people who need a lesson in giving. They spend their whole lives taking, not earning. After realizing they are boxers, this all makes sense.

As a fighter, our narrator tells us, you don’t so much earn respect, you take it away from the other guy. A lifetime of taking away runs down these characters, and a lesson in giving is the only way they will be able to live with themselves.

Once again, Clint Eastwood plays a man named Frank. This time he’s a boxing trainer, but once again he’s way too old to be doing his job. He spends his days training talent from scratch, hoping to bring the next big phenom up from the streets and into a title fight. He spends his spare time learning Gaelic, the dying Irish language. This says more about Frank than anything else.

Morgan Freeman once again plays a man way too smart for his current career situation. Instead of an inmate, Freeman’s Eddie Dupris is a janitor, there to help manage the gym that boss Frank owns, and to clean up the bathroom when a disgusting toilet overflows. Most importantly, Eddie is there to give Frank the kind of advice he really needs.

Each of these characters carries enormous secrets and guilty pasts, obvious as they walk through shadow after shadow. This is a dark film because it is about dark people, but Frank’s key to brightening up his dreary life walks right into his gym – Maggie Fitzgerald.

Dubbed by our narrator as “trash,” Maggie certainly screams “trailer.” My screening audience became disgusted at the sight of waitress Maggie eating a steak left by a customer.

But Maggie has to be “white trash” with the heart of gold for this movie to work, and her heart is what eventually wins over the reluctant Frank, a man would rather chew glass than train a girl. The fact Maggie cannot even hit a heavy bag right does not fool us, we know under Frank’s training Maggie will go on to challenge for the world title. What surprises us is how much Frank enjoys the ride.

Maggie, unlike the rest of the characters, has spent her life giving. Even in this instance, she does not arrive to take Frank’s training, she’s here to give Frank a chance to give someone something important.

Around this point, we start to learn about Frank’s past and the long lost daughter he sends letters to, only to be sent back by the post office. He keeps boxes of these letters in his closet and spends each morning in the same church, harassing his annoyed young priest about the existence of God and the meaning of life.

Maggie gives Frank a chance to give something so spectacular, an act of giving he was never able to show to his lost daughter. In the last few moments of the film, Frank gives Maggie the greatest gift of all – twice.

Many on the Internet have scoffed at “Million Dollar Baby,” saying it is no more than a walking cliché, and that just being “dark” doesn’t mean that it’s art.

They may be right, and if you are one of these individuals, let me give you some advice: “Million Dollar Baby” is a film that can make the most cynical person reflect on his or her own life. Do not spend two hours in the theater trying to read this film. Sit back, and let it read you.