We know the story, or some version of it: tenacious underdog athlete, humble origins, big dreams. She trains at a dumpy gym with the help of a fatherly coach, overcoming economic disparity to make it past the nationals, all the way to the international stage. Back in her blighted hometown (its very name a national byword for post-industrial neglect), relatives and strangers huddle around TVs to watch her big moment. Against the odds, she triumphs and is rewarded with shiny Olympic gold and the pride of her community. So what happens next? That’s the question that hangs over the long third act of Rachel Morrison’s debut feature The Fire Inside, a biographical drama about the boxer and two-time Olympic gold medalist Claressa Shields (Ryan Destiny).
The Fire Inside begins in the mid-2000s in Flint, Michigan, where Claressa is a silent little girl who sleeps in a shared bed with her siblings in a house where the fridge is always empty. In the afternoons, she hangs out at the local youth field house where Jason Crutchfield (the great Brian Tyree Henry), a cable installer and one-time boxing prospect, teaches boys how to box. Though he is reluctant to train a girl, he eventually takes her on as a student.
Flash forward some years. Claressa is now 16 years old, a serious and supernaturally focused young fighter on her way to the national championship. She has been nicknamed “T-Rex” on account of her short reach. The script, by Barry Jenkins (who also produced), moves briskly, often displaying the same dramatic and structural economy that distinguished his breakthrough Moonlight. (In that respect, it feels much more like a Jenkins film than his own recent Mufasa: The Lion King.) From the nationals, we are whisked to Claressa’s first international competition in Shanghai, where she barely qualifies for the 2012 Olympics, and from there, on to London. Though Claressa now lives in Jason’s house, he is no longer allowed to coach her, so he flies to London on his own dime to cheer from the sidelines (and deliver one very Jenkins-ian monologue about the origins of Flint’s name).
Morrison, an Oscar-nominated cinematographer best known for her work with Ryan Coogler and Dee Rees, directs in a fairly restrained style: the widescreen frames are roomy, the fights quick and unornamented, the dramatic scenes short. It feels like a speedrun of a sports biopic, and that’s intentional. What would normally be the victorious climax of this kind of movie is dispensed with partway through, and we move on to the aftermath, which The Fire Inside wants us to understand is the real story: that of a semi-obscure athlete who achieves her dream early and discovers that it hasn’t changed her life.
Though Claressa is now a celebrity in Flint, she is still poor and, outside of her boxing drive, aimless. The endorsement deals that Jason (now acting as her agent and manager) promised were on the horizon have failed to materialize. Publicists are turned off by her cold demeanor and lack of sex appeal. (The fact that discomfort over women’s boxing is touched on throughout The Fire Inside feels timely in light of this past summer’s Olympics.) The best Jason can scrounge up are local meet-and-greets where Claressa signs autographs for $15 a pop. “Does what I did even count?” she wonders at one point.
Conceptually, these searching, melancholy later stretches are the most intriguing aspect of the film. But they come at the expense of momentum. Morrison lacks Jenkins’ penchant for artfully moody, dreamy lingering, and the occasional moments when music overwhelms the soundtrack feel emotionally disconnected from the characters, preventing a deeper glimpse inside. Nonetheless, in an era where the mid-budget movie has mostly disappeared, The Fire Inside’s modest, thoughtful reworking of the sports drama formula can feel refreshing.
Director: Rachel Morrison
Writer: Barry Jenkins
Starring: Ryan Destiny, Brian Tyree Henry
Release Date: December 25, 2024
