Girls who grow up knowing they want to know how to fight aren’t necessarily boxers. But Claressa Shields, a native of Flint, Michigan, for whom boxing was a passion, stepped into the ring early: As a teenage phenom, she struggled to reach record Olympic gold levels. (Twice, back to back. )
It sounds like the kind of real-life sports saga designed for movies, through a tried-and-true playbook, one that “The Fire Inside,” the fast-paced, emotionally charged debut film from Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rachel Morrison, very many hugs at first. You have a difficult education, a difficult coach-boxer camaraderie, and intellectual hurdles to overcome before the big moment. Gifted, motivated, and played through a memorable Ryan Destiny (as if the dark gaze was a renewable energy source), Claressa competed with the dream of a damaged city on her shoulders and won as if none of it was a burden.
Most storytellers wouldn’t want more than that to fill a feature-length film, and Claressa’s main points make up the film’s familiar setup. Getting to the end begins by running through the snow, far from a depleted house and a negligent spinster. mom (Oluniké Adeliyi) and to boxing classes throughout the city taught by volunteer teacher Jason Crutchfield (the redoubtable Brian Tyree Henry), a veteran. Claressa’s skill and no-nonsense confidence temporarily erase Jason’s prejudices about women in the ring, and under his courageous, fatherly guidance, she triumphs in women’s boxing’s first appearance at the Olympic Games.
Yet what makes “The Fire Inside” more powerful than just another heroic biopic about a superior athlete (“Moonight’s” Barry Jenkins’ wrote the superlative, big-canvas screenplay) is what happens after the bell rings and the medals come out. In fact, when Morrison delivers that ceremonial moment for 17-year-old Shields in London in 2012, though we see pride, hands on hearts and mouths singing the American anthem, what we hear is composer Tamar-kali’s score — a melancholy, yearning strain that signals, paradoxically, that there’s more to tell.
It turns out that Claressa’s life after gold was not the rise and fall factor typical of so many boxing stories, but a rise and fall factor. Aversion to exposed femininity, fair in interviews (“I like to hit people,” she says with a smile) and disdainful of being anything other than what she was, this new American champion in a traditionally male sport has not been filled with life changes. . endorsements and opportunities after returning home. Six months later, she’s one of the school’s top students, signing T-shirts at bowling alleys for money, while Jason’s efforts to get her signed are met with the same narrow-mindedness toward the girls’ images. in boxing that he had to be disillusioned with years ago. (Is there a better actor than Henry today to convey those moment-to-moment pleasures and setbacks that involve a completely absorbed life?)
This is an aspect of sporting good fortune that is underexplored in the movies: the concept of how sporting good fortune is advertised and sold. This truth hits us in a scene where Claressa single-handedly runs urgently to the grocery store with her teenage sister’s dirty baby on her hip and stumbles upon a wall of Wheaties boxes emblazoned with Michael Phelps. It is a stark and harsh juxtaposition, heartbreaking and infuriating.
But “The Fire Inside” is not a pity party about the inequality of a system, and the film’s refusal to portray anyone in Claressa’s life as simply an impediment or a best friend is another sign of the welcome (and very Jenkins style). ) emotional intelligence. And while the boxing unfolds kinetically, Morrison realizes that the film’s fiercest posturing takes place outside the ring, when Claressa, faced with potentially difficult choices about her future, asserts herself over the other people who have wanted to listen to her. This ever-increasing motivation to win, even when the fight ends, is what sets “The Fire Inside” apart from many others of its kind.
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