The release and subsequent Academy Awards victory for Moonlight in 2016 ushered in a new American master in Barry Jenkins, the previously obscure writer-director whose debut film, Medicine for Melancholy, was underseen upon its initial release. Jenkins seemed primed to write the next chapter in the story of the black American experience, but his subsequent career has been frustratingly stagnant. Although Jenkins’ adaptation of the James Baldwin novel If Beale Street Could Talk was a masterpiece, and superior to Moonlight, it failed to earn any significant attention. Jenkins’ subsequent work on the 10-part miniseries The Underground Railroad provoked a similarly muted response. As finely crafted as the series was, it proved a challenge for Amazon Studios to market an emotionally devastating examination of slavery as a binge release.
Jenkins has adopted the “one for them, one for me” approach, as the latest feature film he directed was Walt Disney Studios’ Mufasa: The Lion King. The film’s a prequel to the 2019 shot-for-shot remake of The Lion King, which was marketed as “live-action,” despite the fact that it was entirely populated by photorealistic digital animals. As disappointing as it is to see that Jenkins has been swept up by the studio system, he did have more direct creative involvement in The Fire Inside, a biographical drama about the American boxer Clarissa Shields.
Jenkins wrote the screenplay for The Fire Inside, but it was directed by Rachel Morrison. Morrison previously served as the cinematographer behind Mudbound and Black Panther, and first indicated an interest in feature filmmaking after making her debut on an episode of the third season of The Mandalorian. It’s odd that the pipeline of cinematographers-turned-directors is less common than actors or writers, as the person tasked with the visual composition of a film likely knows how to tell a story. In Morrison’s case, the steady direction of The Fire Inside has allowed the more ambitious idea that Jenkins inserted to stand out.
Shields’ story is so poised for adaptation that it would’ve been easily classified as fiction had it been pitched as an original story. Raised in an impoverished community in Flint, Michigan, Shields survived a fraught familial situation before her qualification for the United States Olympic Team. After a Gold Medal in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London in the middleweight division of women’s boxing, Shields returned to the life of a high school student. The subsequent struggle came down to antiquated debates on whether a black, female boxer could be a marketing icon within what was perceived to be a “men’s sport.” Nonetheless, Shields’ second Gold Medal at the 2016 Olympics cemented her legacy.
There’s a fairly straightforward path that The Fire Inside could’ve taken to be a standard inspirational sports drama in the vein of Rocky, The Fighter, Cinderella Man, or even Million Dollar Baby. Shields’ greatest battle was outside the ring, as she had to compete against rivals that had greater resources and communal support. Remarkably, The Fire Inside doesn’t attempt to conflate the pressures put on Shields with her athletic record. The rousing middle chapter of The Fire Inside is the point in which most sports movies end, and the rest of the film is an examination of the reality of being a champion without a network of support.
The Fire Inside’s most devastating thesis is that the mundanity of inequity has sanded down any significant achievements. Although it doesn’t suggest that Shields sought to be a celebrity, the transition from being told she was a national representative to being hustled for food is glaring. Shields is put in a position where she’s forced to wage an entirely different battle in order to ensure that women in sports are given the same financial opportunities as their male counterparts. At the same time, Jenkins’ screenplay acknowledges that this is hardly a fair responsibility to thrust upon a teenage girl.
Images of Flint have become so commonplace that it was a challenge for The Fire Inside to emphasize why the situation was so intolerable. Although the film’s recognition of the role that racial profiling played in this community upheaval is undercooked, the charisma that the breakout star Ryan Destiny conveys in her performance is enough to make The Fire Inside thoroughly watchable. One of the more interesting storylines within Shields’ media odyssey is that she never became a “personality” in the same way that male Olympians like Michael Phelps or Kevin Durant did. The Fire Inside didn’t need to fill in the gaps within sports journalism, but it did give a voice to a prominent figure who was previously silent.
The sooth-saying coach in The Fire Inside is Jason Crutchfield, a Flint native who accepted Destiny as his student in the community boxing club he ran. The performance by Brian Tyree Henry is warm, but not completely idealized. Crutchfield got a similarly raw deal by the American Olympics organization as the one that Shields faced. Henry’s able to acknowledge the depression of the situation whilst retaining optimism, which is representative of the film’s goals. The Fire Inside doesn’t wag its fingers at the audience, but it also understands that Shields’ story is too compelling to receive a toothless approach.