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‘The Fire Inside’ Review: Ryan Destiny Gives a Powerfully Gritty Performance in a True-Life Boxing Drama That’s Like ‘Girlfight’ Meets ‘Air’
The first feature directed by cinematographer Rachel Morrison is a grippingly downbeat sports movie that throws the audience a curveball.
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. The concept of girls’ boxing seemed revolutionary back in 2000, when Michelle Rodriguez starred in “Girlfight,” Karyn Kusama’s gripping drama about a troubled Brooklyn high schooler who channels her aggression into the ring. “The Fire Inside” is the first feature directed by Rachel Morrison, the celebrated cinematographer who shot “Fruitvale Station,” “Mudbound,” and “Black Panther,” and in this movie what she extends from her signature lensing is a quality of no-frills reality that’s very New Hollywood.
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