Ironically for a film about boxing, The Fire Inside caught me with an okey doke. In its first half, I kept thinking that the movie never took a breath, and when Claressa Shields (Ryan Destiny) won her gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, I thought the movie was wrapping up quickly without much in the way of emotional depth. Oh, how wrong I was. The film then cuts to the aftermath of Shields’ first medal win and her journey to fully commit to boxing for her foreseeable future, and that’s where it both breathes and breathes fire.
The true story of Claressa Shields is remarkable and awe-inspiring. Although parts of it feel rushed here, the impression we get is of a walking powerhouse of internal motivation. Yes, she is discouraged at various times, but she ultimately always gets back up to fight, inside and outside of the ring. Shields grew up in a tough family environment in Flint, Michigan. Her mother Jackie (Oluniké Adeliyi) wasn’t totally absent, but she wasn’t exactly fully present, either. She often hosted parties at all hours of the night, inviting strangers who weren’t exactly friendly towards Claressa and her two siblings. Claressa’s respite was boxing. From a very young age, she wanted to train, but her father Clarence (Adam Clark), who was an underground fighter for many years and was in prison from the time Claressa was two to nine years old, forbid her from pursuing boxing until she was eleven. She began training with Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry), himself a former fighter, and eventually found enormous success despite a mountain of obstacles and setbacks. Her gold medal win at 17 years old made her the first American woman to win a boxing gold medal.
Director Rachel Morrison (the first female Oscar-nominated cinematographer) and screenwriter Barry Jenkins (director of Moonlight) focus in tight on the relationship between Claressa and Jason. I would criticize the film more for this, since this focal point does tend to drown out other areas which are important to knowing who Claressa is as a person, such as her family life and first romantic relationship, but Destiny and Henry are so monumentally terrific in their respective roles that I can’t really complain. Especially in the second half, Jason’s determination to make Claressa a success is endlessly endearing. When you consider that he was making no money — in fact, losing money — from his efforts to find her sponsorships after her gold medal win, fighting uphill battles against sexism and prejudice, it’s no wonder that the filmmakers wanted to sing the praises of this unsung hero. Ryan Destiny is a revelation as Shields. The tension in the outside-the-ring portions of the film stems from whether or not Claressa will let the trials of her teen years and the disappointment of not quite breaking into the professional sports world get the better of her. This means that Destiny and Henry verbally square off a number of times, as Jason tries to convince Claressa to do the right thing and pursue her dreams and pure talent. The drama of wondering whether or not this dynamic duo will stick together is captivating.
Equally captivating is a scene late in the film where Claressa nearly throws away a symbol of her success, and someone we don’t expect saves the day. It definitely got a little dusty in the theater for me at this moment, as seeing that kind of life-changing encouragement can be pretty profound in this day and age. It’s easy to throw in the towel. We all need people in our corner to encourage us do the hard work of pursuing our dreams. Shields and her team are a lesson to us all: when you get knocked down, get back up. | George Napper
