“She’s Not Asking For God’s Help”/Maggie’s Death – Million Dollar Baby (2004)
Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby was the best boxing movie since Rocky, and though they are similar in their underdog story approach, Eastwood’s film was an emotional powerhouse. The story follows Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) on her upwards journey from a penniless waitress to the queen of the ring. There to help her is Frankie Dunn (Eastwood), a veteran coach who’s hesitant at first but develops an unbreakable bond with the sweet fighter.
We watch them fill the holes in each other’s lives; whether it be their lack of family or their insecurities, the two just fit. And that’s what makes the film’s horrific conclusion all the more painful. Maggie, who at this point is mowing down contenders, is given a title shot against a woman notorious for her dirty tactics. Though the fight is obviously more of a challenge, it’s clear that Maggie has the upper hand. That is, until the bell rings, and her opponent pulls a sneak punch. Maggie comes tumbling down, and her neck lands on the stool Frankie placed in the corner of the ring.
Her career is over, but she’s still alive; paralyzed, but alive. The film’s final third shows Maggie in a state of internal torture. She begs Frankie to kill her, telling him she wants to remember the crowds cheering her name. But when Frankie, who loves her like a daughter, cannot bring himself to do it, she tries to do it herself, biting her tongue, hoping to bleed out.
Frankie understands how badly she wants to die, and that if he keeps her alive, he’ll be slowly killing her. He goes to a priest, who obviously tells him he can’t do it, when he makes a realization: “she’s not asking for God’s help, she’s asking for mine.” Frankie decides to relieve her of her pain, and as he injects the adrenaline, a shot enough “to do the job a few times over,” a look of peace crosses over Maggie’s face.
Wilson Floats Away – Cast Away (2000)
Who else but Tom Hanks can make us fall in love with a volleyball? No one, that’s who. In the 2000 film Cast Away, director Robert Zemeckis impeccably demonstrated the elasticity of human desperation, as its central character, Chuck Noland (Hanks), a Fed Ex executive, crash lands in the ocean and is left on a deserted island.
Hundreds of miles from home, his girlfriend, and any kind of human contact, Chuck must take part in a battle of wits against himself as the isolated environment tests him physically, mentally and emotionally. He eventually learns how to live off of the land, starting fires, fishing, breaking coconuts, etc. But he also has a little bit of material aid, as some of the Fed Ex boxes wash up on shore; obviously they won’t be getting to where they need to go, so Chuck opens them. Among the packages is a volleyball who (and I do mean who) Chuck names “Wilson” after converting a bloody handprint on it into a face.
Towards the end of the film, Chuck has construed a way to leave the prison, and with Wilson by his side, he goes out on his “homemade” raft into the ferocious, unforgiving ocean. But the storm is powerful, and after Chuck manages to conquer it, he wakes from his daze to find that Wilson is nowhere in sight. He finds the ball out in the water; it’s too far away. The man scrambles to recover his friend, but it’s too late, and he watches as his compatriot, the person (and I do mean person) who probably saved his life, goes out into the ocean where he came from.
This is a particularly upsetting moment as Wilson is Chuck’s only friend, and though they get into arguments sometimes, it’s obvious that they love each other as much as a man and a volleyball possibly could. So when Chuck loses him, Wilson has become so real that it’s almost like a human floating away, a loved one, never to be seen again. And though Wilson’s demise represents some kind of a separation between Chuck and the island that has held him hostage, we can’t help but feel that the volleyball didn’t have to go…
