Michael Moore’s first major documentary ‘Roger & Me (1989) took audiences to Flint, Michigan where General Motors had closed its factory and decimated the city with 35000 job losses. The Fire Inside takes us back there and little has changed as shots of run down communities and poor housing demonstrates but running through and perhaps away from all of this is 11 year old Claressa Shields on her way to a local boys only boxing club run for free by cable guy by day, boxing trainer by night Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry). Jeered at by the boys, Jason sets up a quick fun fight between her and the big mouthed little boy leading the jeers and right from the get-go he can see Claressa has the fire inside.
Five years later Claressa (Ryan Destiny) is boxing and a boxer to be reckoned with that now finds her competing at the 2012 Olympic trials where she wins a place and yet it a win at the main event is still stacked against her. Olympics rules prevent Jason, being her onsite trainer in London, and added to her woes is her single parent mother kicking her out of the house, a boyfriend who vies for her attention whilst she is drawn to her training, a newly pregnant sister who’s also fallen out with her mother and then there’s her school studies.
Those looking for their Rocky template will find it here – the inspirational speeches, the disadvantaged background and of course the obligatory training montage and it ends as might be expected with her winning Olympic gold but this is only the first half of the film. It’s the second half that takes a look at life after the glory. Endorsements and sponsorship are all but non-existent and surely for the punishing conditions in the ring would be ideally suited for a haemorrhoid treatment (‘You’re fired!’ – Ed). Women’s beach volley, that’s another story. What company doesn’t want to throw money at lithe lovelies in thongs and barely there sports bras bouncing around on the beach. But women battering one another into a pulp ….well you can get that on the Old Kent Road on a Friday night.
Ryan Destiny and Brian Tyree Henry have a great on screen chemistry and their scenes together sparkle. Henry becoming the father figure she needs to the sullen teenager, with a reticence around men explained in a rare moment of openness. It’s what makes the first half far more than just a chain of boxing movie tropes and the second half is that rare insight into the reality of life after a gold medal when the promotors want their female boxers to be more glam than the contestants on Ru Paul’s Drag Race and against those odds she chooses to go for a second Olympics in a bid for a first – consecutive gold medals in boxing.
The Fire Inside is a terrific true life film with two great performances with a story that is far more than the standard boxing tropes and is testament to writer Barry Jenkins script as well as Oscar nominated cinematographer turned director Rachel Morrison. This is a knock out film.
related feature : Rocky films rated….
related feature: Gael García Bernal & Diego Luna were hilarious talking about their great new boxing drama series, ‘La Maquina’
Here’s the Fire Inside trailer…..
