The rise of boxer Claressa Shields is depicted in The Fire Inside, a socially conscious sports movie that looks beyond the medals and glory.
Director: Rachel Morrison
Genre: Sports Drama
Run Time: 109′
TIFF Screening: September 2024
U.S. Release Date: December 25, 2024
U.K. Release Date: TBA
In 2006, when The Fire Inside opens, the USA had never won gold in women’s boxing; the female sport wasn’t even an official Olympic event at the time. A decade later, however, it had won two. This film, penned by Barry Jenkins and brought to life by celebrated cinematographer and first-time film director Rachel Morrison, tells the story of the woman who made that happen.
One gets the impression that few expected much of the young Claressa Shields, born and raised in Flint, Michigan, a city known the world around for its poverty, high crime rates and a lead contamination crisis that lasted five years. In the mid to late ‘00s she runs halfway across the city, away from her cramped home and struggling mother (Olunike Adeliyi), and towards the boxing gym. Protesting the centre’s ‘boys only’ rule, it isn’t so much that Claressa (played as a child by Jazmin Headley) is taken under the wing of coach Jason (Brian Tyree Henry, of Causeway), as it is that she forces her way under there. Her life will be defined by a refusal to take ‘no’ for an answer.
Morrison’s film tracks Shields’ rise from promising young talent to Olympic finalist at the age of just 17, winning gold at the London games in 2012. But it doesn’t stop there; once the stadium empties and life continues, the boxer finds herself almost back to square one, doing her best to support her family with the meagre earnings that being a female athlete, champion or not, brings. It is this dichotomy – the contradiction of Shields’ life as both a famed boxer and a regular human being – that makes the film such an interesting take on the traditional sports biopic.
The first half is a little conventional, spending most of its time going through the motions of the genre with some trite Hollywood dialogue one wouldn’t expect from a writer as sophisticated as Jenkins. It looks and feels fresh, though. The fight scenes in particular convey the fierceness of the sport with a rare verisimilitude, and there’s a healthy amount of laughs as we watch Shields ascend to the pinnacle of her field. The movie really gets going when it returns to Flint, depicting Shields’ struggle to secure corporate endorsements and piece together a living despite all her success; here Jenkins flexes his screenwriting muscles, injecting a scathing political criticism into an otherwise personal story.
As the teenage Shields, Ryan Destiny is a revelation. She shares almost every scene with Henry, the pair capturing perfectly how torn their characters are between the romance of sport and the harsh reality of their daily lives. Their ability to bounce off each other, bringing heartbreak and humour in equal measure, is best displayed when Jason takes Claressa in after her home life falls apart. Speaking of which, Adeliyi’s vulnerable performance as her somewhat neglectful mother is one of many that strike just the right note.
The Fire Inside finishes on a text-based epilogue listing Shield’s achievements since the events depicted. She went on to win again in Rio, the first US boxer of either sex to achieve back-to-back Olympic gold medals, and continues to fight for gender parity in the sport. Her story is an inspiring one, but that can be said for plenty of these biopics; what marks this one out is how it raises the question of how many other Claressa Shields there are in the world, whose boundless potential is hindered by still-existing gender, race and/or class barriers. It’s a solid sports drama, but an excellent socio-political treatise.
The Fire Inside was screened at TIFF on September 8-15, 2024 and will be released in US theaters on Christmas Day. Read our review of Riff Raff!
