The Fire Inside
The Fire Inside
“What you think about girls’ boxing?” The man asking that is Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry), the coach of a boys’ boxing club located in Flint, Michigan. It’s 2012, and five years before he’d allowed one girl to join his club (even though it was against protocol): a coiled 11-year-old scowler named Claressa Shields, played by Jazmin Headley and then, as she grows up, by Ryan Destiny. At Flint, Claressa, the heroine of “The Fire Inside,” possess the grit to elbow and shove herself into the ring. It’s not as if she persuades anyone to let her in – Claressa, as we learn, is not much of a talker. She uses her give her punches to vocalise, figuratively. And one of the reasons, as she give herself away, why she is so great at using them is because she enjoys hitting people. She is a bully and owns it even. Background wise more than a few issues waged a war with her: father in jail, a rather inconsiderate and at times nasty fun loving single mother (Oluniké Adeliyi) which is unable to crawl out of poverty. And not easy forget the hopelessness of an entire area in the grip of depressed state. This is what everyone is saying to Claressa that the only side which she is able to punch is the side which is to be punched at.
Since Jason, the coach, talks about girls’ boxing, he is asking about the fact that it is such an alien idea at this stage of most people in the world. We, as moviegoers, of course, may not be feeling that way. The idea of girls’ boxing was quite an alien idea in the year 2000, when Michelle Rodriguez performed the leading role in the drama ‘Girlfight’ directed by Karyn Kusama about a troubled teenager from Brooklyn who can fight because her goes through depression. However, that was a long time, and the narrative that ‘The Fire Inside’ presents is that of victory and glory. In 2012, 17-year-old Claressa Shields, known as “T-Rex,” claimed her title as the first female American boxer to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games. Four years later, she achieved her second Olympic title, becoming the first American woman to win two Olympic boxing titles.
Because of her relatively young age, it is likely that we have a narrative about fierceness and determination, about the relentless ascent of a boxer who is nothing short of a gutsy powerhouse at the punching bag. The Fire Inside restores us back to that, it’s a real humdinger. However, it also has a sober understanding of how triumph can come at a very high cost. The arc of the drama is constructed around a huge curve ball that it throws at the audience. And that’s when the movie really gets interesting.
De l’incendie, pronounced “of the fire” is the first non-doc feature by Rachel Morrison. Rachel Morrison is an award-winning cinematographer, who shot most beautiful films like exposition of “Fruitvale Station”, “Mudbound” and “Black Panther”. In this particular movie what she borrows from works of her prolific craft is the new – well it is not really new anymore, but New Hollywood realism. In The Fire Inside, one could experience the bitter cold tundra-like winter of Flint Michigan and the decaying poverty of Claressa’s hometown apartment where there is never food enough in the cabinets. More than anything else, you understand what an exasperating and intimidating figure Claressa is.
It’s not that she’s “dislikable.” It’s that the up-and-coming actor Ryan Destiny does a mesmerizing job of reining in and redirecting her vibrance, so that we could rather understand how Claressa’s spirit has turned inwards. This is the reason why Claressa is a girl who doesn’t talk much. Because she knows in which direction her words will take her. In the history that she builds with Jason the coach; underneath the respect is a healthy degree of antagonism. You would be tempted to consider that Brian Tyree Henry has previously featured in any repeated variation of such a role — a down-home noble there to offer support albeit grudgingly. Jason is in fact, an emotional trick. The Jason character, sporting spectacles and a goatee, is depicted as an easy going overly soggy man who finds himself way beyond his depth. He is just a regular guy in a security position with an illegal side job as a coach – and a not very good and respected one at that. And he knows that the only way stupid people like her can be contained is by sheer determination to contain them in one way or another. But still, she wants him. When she makes it to the Olympic trials in Shanghai in 2012, Jason has his honor and cannot pay for her trip. Her stares and moves.
The sports-movie genre always prepares us for one thing: victory. “The Fire Inside”, written by Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight,” however, has a strong and galvanizing twist to it. Claressa is a tireless fighter in the ring without a doubt. Fight sequences are-paced on the templing energy where Ryan Destiny sinks that sense of anger and turmoil. But that first gold medal which was her first triumph, after putting in so much effort, was the spirit cleansing that has been lodged in our thoughts, in spite of the fact that we are all thinking, “Whoa! This is only the mid-point of the movie. Where can it head to from here?”
A teenager of African parentage gets up from the slums of Flint and turns out to be a world-beating Olympic champion. Is there a catch, though? This is it. Claressa still dreams of achieving that prolonged ambition of being a professional boxer and within her capability to achieve that. Except what she aspires most is not being a champion but for that achievement to be wait for it — worth money. She has risen to greatness, she has become famous, and made the nation of America proud. But where does her compensation come from?
Endorsement deals help Olympic renowned athletes to earn income. At any rate, there are none for Claressa. Some sponsors approach her, but then they turn around and leave.
“The Fire Inside” shifts away from portraying itself as a sports drama towards more so a marketing sports story like that of “Air”. However, this movie, was not simply about selling someone a shoe. It was about race, what it meant to be Michael Jordan and the monopoly power he had, why we venerate a certain athlete in this. Marketing is one of the ethereal advertising boards of our society; it embodies justice and egalitarianism in terms of capitalism. When Claressa goes out of her way and tries to market herself for product endorsements, and get women fighters’ allowances equalized for those Women’s Olympics, it isn’t just a side activity to boxing. It is boxing. She is sticking her fist into the system and tries to smash it. And Ryan Destiny is a heroine. We understand that look in this boxing champion Claressa, one that combines grit and defiance with a daunting determination to be the best.
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- Genre: Biography, Drama, Sport
- Country: United States
- Director: Rachel Morrison
- Cast: Ryan Destiny, Jazmin Headley, Brian Tyree Henry, Kylee D. Allen, De'Adre Aziza, Chrystian Buddington, Maurice Wayne Anglin, Teanna Weir
