“We don’t train no girls.” When coach Jason Crutchfield (Henry) dismisses wannabe boxer Claressa Shields from his gym in Flint, Mich., it’s inevitable that he’ll get shown up. If you know anything about boxing, you’ll know that young Claressa showed everyone, with an undefeated professional career and 15 titles in five different weight classes. Nicknamed T-Rex, and played here by fellow Michigander Ryan Destiny, hers is the definitional rags-to-riches boxing story – so much so that it seems like a cliché.
That’s the real fight for first-time director and Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rachel Morrison (Mudbound, Black Panther): to make Shields’ story feel unique, to really wrangle with what it is to become a successful athlete in a sport when all the cards of race and class and gender and geography are stacked against you. Yet the lightweight script by Barry Jenkins – concentrating on Shields’ run at Olympic gold in 2012 – never really lands a punch on any of these topics. Nor does it truly grapple with who Shields is, beyond her being a hardscrabble hero. If anything, the script is far more interested in Crutchfield as her coach, proxy father, and advocate. Indeed, it’s only after the Olympics that it gets interesting, as Shields has to decide whether to be a regular teen or keep on striving for the dream.
Yet it’s all undercut by surprisingly flat cinematography from music video veteran Rina Yang, a tepid strings-and-piano score by Tamar-kali (The Assistant, Shirley), and generally lackadaisical pacing from Morrison. There’s an important message in here, especially when it comes to the financial inequality between men and women in sports. But rather than using the 17-year-old Shields’ pugnacious attitude to really explore how she landed body blows on the sexist establishment, The Fire Inside just ends up shadow boxing.
This article appears in December 27 • 2024.
