The Fire Inside

My first movie of 2025 was The Fire Inside at the Broadway last night and I definitely picked a good one to begin the year with!  I am a sucker for real-life inspirational sports movies but this subverts the usual formula to focus on what happens after all of the glory.  Eight year old Claressa Shields (Jazmin Headley) runs every day to a boxing gym in Flint, Michigan to escape her dysfunctional home life but the volunteer coach Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry) doesn't want to train a girl.  He eventually relents when he sees her fierce determination and, five years later, "T-Rex" (Ryan Destiny) is the best boxer in the gym with a chance to go to the 2012 Olympics in London.  Motivated by the opportunity to help her family, she overcomes incredible odds and wins the first women's boxing medal for the USA.  However, the real fight begins after the Olympics when she is unable to find representation or lucrative endorsement deals because the public is not interested in women's sports, especially boxing, and when USA Boxing offers a training stipend that is significantly less than the one for the men even though she was the only boxer to win a gold medal.  This true story is incredibly inspirational but it is also heartbreaking because winning was not enough and, as much as I loved all of the stand up and cheer moments (including the requisite training montage), I was really moved by some of the more poignant ones such as when Claressa silently weeps when she sees all of the other gold medal winners on the Wheaties boxes and when she tries to pawn her gold medal.  Both Destiny and Henry give highly affecting performances and I loved the way their relationship is portrayed because they need each other and inspire each other but they also butt heads in scenes that crackle with energy.  I also really loved the way in which the boxing sequences are filmed because they are dynamic and exciting.  I feel like this movie has been overshadowed by some of the bigger Christmas releases but it is a crowd-pleaser about the power of perseverance and fighting twice as hard for what you want that is definitely worth checking out.  I loved it!