3 ½ stars
It’s one of the most memorable movie openings. The camera slowly moves in on the figure of a young woman leaning against a high school locker. You can’t see her face; her hoodie is pulled down to hide from the passing students. What would be a posture of self-defense in most pulsates with a sense of danger the closer the camera gets. When it—and the audience—invades her personal space, she reacts.
Bam! Welcome to Girlfight and the stunning debut of actress Michelle Rodriguez
With 55 films on her resume, including her fan-favorite run as Letty, the heart and soul of the Fast and Furious franchise, it’s fascinating to go back 24 years to see where Rodriguez began her career playing Diana Guzman, a troubled teen too angry with the world to find her place in it. A chance trip to pick up her brother at a local boxing club starts Diana on a journey that soon has her fighting inside and outside the ring. What she sees as the perfect outlet for her anger and her passion pisses off just about everybody else in her life because, as they constantly point out to Diana, girls don’t fight.
How wrong they all are.
By the time Girlfight hit theaters, boxing movies were a staple for most moviegoers – Rocky V hit theaters a decade before Girlfight – but those going to watch another Rah-Rah underdog sports movie might have been confused by the film writer/director Karyn Kusama made. It has all the elements of that kind of sports movie but delivers much more. Most boxing movies released before it, especially the bulk of the Rocky franchise, haven’t withstood the test of time. Girlfight feels as fresh and vital as it did the day it was released.
Part of that vibrancy comes from the director’s approach to telling this story. There’s a rawness to the film that perfectly captures the world that Diana lives in, although surviving in it would be more accurate. Look at the gym that any other movie boxer works out in, and you can tell the set designers spent a long time trying to make the space look authentic. Follow Diana into the gym in Kusama’s film, and you can almost smell the sweat and B.O. from the fighters oozing off the screen. Part of that is the film’s limited budget, but most of that feel comes from how Kusama films the gym and its denizens. If all you see is the dirt and the cracks in the walls, or if you flinch at the thudding sounds of gloves hitting the heavy bag or an opponent, you don’t belong. Kusama uses those same skills to capture the intensity of Diana’s environment outside the gym. This world can be just as violent, but it lacks the safety of a neutral corner when it gets too intense.
Rodriguez stalks through these scenes like a panther searching for something to kill with a fascinating, fear-inducing performance. Even when Diana ‘relaxes’ with her brother or her fledgling boyfriend, there is always a sense that she never lets her guard completely down. Her gloves may be off, but Rodriguez wants the world to know that this girl is always ready to fight.
Girlfight is now available in a director-approved Blyu-ray edition from The Criterion Collection.
