Hollywood Endings
By Eric Cox
Hotel Rwanda
Released by United Artists, Lions Gate Films Inc., and MGM
Rated PG-13 on appeal for violence, disturbing images and brief strong language
Million Dollar Baby
Released by Warner Brothers and Lakeshore International
Rated PG-13 for violence, some disturbing images, thematic material and language
The Oscar nominations were released this week, with few big surprises. Martin Scorsese's The Aviator and Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby are the year's most celebrated films, both decidedly downbeat stories about characters who achieve the heights of success only to fall into the deepest abyss.
Unhappy endings are indeed the fashion these days, which makes it doubly odd that the most stunning film in that category was overlooked by the Academy this year.
Hotel Rwanda tells the true story of Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), the manager of an upscale hotel in Kigali, Rwanda, who, when civil war erupted in that country in 1994, became a true hero by sheltering and ultimately saving the lives of more than one thousand Tutsi refugees. (Rusesabagina is a Hutu.)
The film emphasizes the West's indifference to the plight of the nearly one million Africans who were slaughtered in the most horrible ways by soldiers and militia members for no other reason than having a lighter skin tone than their neighbors. At one point, a United Nations colonel (Nick Nolte), helpless to aid Rusesabagina and the refugees, pointedly tells him that the Western troops who have just arrived are not staying to protect the lives of Africans but only to evacuate every white person in the country and leave the Tutsis to face certain death.
What follows is one of the most heart-rending scenes I have ever seen in a fiction film: Dozens of shamed whites climb onto waiting buses in the midst of the onlooking black hotel employees, who stand at attention and even hold umbrellas for the guests as they run to the buses in the rain. The pain, anger, frustration, and disgust is evident on the faces of both the blacks and the whites even as they try to hide it from one another. One can hardly imagine being put in the position of any of these characters; the idea that the situation actually happened is almost unbearable.
The rest of the film is both a horrifying and inspirational account of Rusesabagina's desperate ingenuity in protecting the lives of the refugees with nothing to defend them except his wits.
Thematically akin to Schindler's List (1993), Hotel Rwanda is a tragic reminder on this sixtieth anniversary of the Holocaust that the West did allow history to repeat itself. Viewing the film is a more fitting way to reflect on that anniversary than any of the polite ceremonies and speeches that mark the occasion. It is more than just another movie: It deserves a place, and I believe will find one, in the annals of world cinema as a timeless statement of the human condition.
Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby is certainly not that, but it is a better-than-average, almost wonderful film about a tenacious female boxer named Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) and her washed-up trainer, Frankie Dunn (Eastwood).
Eastwood plays the sort of crusty, hard-around-the-edges loner that he plays so well, and his casting choices of Swank and Morgan Freeman as an ex-boxer who now serves as janitor at Frankie's gym are right on the mark. Freeman's Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris is exactly what we imagine an aging boxer who never won a title fight to look and sound like; whether he bears any relation to reality is entirely irrelevant.
Whereas Hotel Rwanda is honor-bound to be as faithful as possible to Rusesabagina's story and world-historical events, Million Dollar Baby is a beautiful meditation on a hundred old Hollywood cliches about boxing and boxers, loners, million-to-one shots, second chances, loyalty, honor, dignity, justice, and every individual's one chance at glory.
In my opinion, the rather tangential ending of Million Dollar Baby comes close to ruining the movie, which for the first 110 minutes or so is terrific entertainment. Ironically, the film's dour, melancholy conclusion is probably precisely what has made it a critics' favorite and an Oscar contender. Had the movie ended 20 minutes earlier, it likely would have been dismissed as just another boxing picture.
Hotel Rwanda and Million Dollar Baby both feature terrific performances--Cheadle's nomination, so well deserved, is accompanied by a Best Supporting Actress nomination for the brilliant Sophie Okonedo, who portrays Rusesabagina's wife, Tatiana, and Eastwood, Freeman, and Swank were all recognized by the Academy.
Unfortunately, the Academy overlooked Hotel Rwanda in the Best Picture category, although it is a better film than Million Dollar Baby, and The Aviator, for that matter.
Perhaps some unhappy endings are simply easier to applaud than others.
Eric Cox is a research fellow at the Sagamore Institute for Policy Research (www.sipr.org) and a movie columnist for TAEmag.com.
