Pick of the Week: Girlfight

Tagline: "Prove them wrong."

Length: 110 minutes.
MPAA : Rated R for language.

Girlfight is a real crowd-pleaser, and it was a big hit on the festival circuit. Among other honors, the film’s first-time writer-director, Karyn Kusama, won the Best Directing Award at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. Also, Girlfight tied with You Can Count on Me for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

The simple but compelling story in Girlfight revolves around a troubled Brooklyn girl who lives in the projects. Then the girl discovers her passion for boxing, and with the help of a coach, she starts to train and finds out what it takes to be a contender. The story in Girlfight is reminiscent of Rocky, although Kusama’s film is not so much a sports story as it is a coming-of-age story, and the twist of a young woman being passionate about a sport considered inappropriate for her gender adds an intriguing dimension. But what makes Girlfight come alive is that it creates such a vivid portrait of high school senior Diana Guzman (brilliantly played with great intensity by Michelle Rodriguez), whose omnipresent rage seems to hover right at the verge of the boiling point.

The film opens with a shot of Diana at her high school with her back against a row of lockers, lost in the crowd of students that stream past her in the hallway. Moments later, Diana ducks into the girls’ bathroom where insults are traded, and Diana beats up a girl who had sex with her best friend’s boyfriend. As a result, Diana must go to the principal’s office, where she’s warned that since this is her fourth fight this semester, she will be expelled if she has another. Diana listens to this and glowers defiantly. Yet there’s a hint of defeat and weariness here that’s beyond her years. She knows it’s inevitable that her temper will flare again and nothing can stop it. As the film unfolds we learn more about the reasons behind her anger, along with the loneliness and isolation that frame it.

Just as Diana is lost in the crowd at school, she’s all but invisible at home. We learn her mother committed suicide years ago, and she and her brother Tiny are being raised by their father. Tiny wants to be an artist, but Dad thinks the only kind of job that will get Tiny is as a house painter. When Diana’s father manages to talk to her at all, he snarls out something like, "Would it kill you to wear a skirt once in a while."

Although Tiny has no interest in boxing, he takes lessons because his father insists. When Diana meets Tiny’s trainer Hector (Jaime Tirelli), she realizes she would like to have Hector train her, too. Since her father refuses to pay for her training, Diana winds up stealing from him to pay for the lessons. Hector isn’t exactly enthusiastic about taking her on, "I’ll train you. If you don’t sweat for me, you’re out of my life." Moments later she walks into the gym manager’s office and sees a photo of Rocky Graziano hanging next to a picture of Jesus.

Before long, Hector starts opening up to Diana. He tells her he was once a fighter in Panama. And when she asks him why he stopped, Hector tells her, "There’s only two of you in that ring. It can be a lonely place. I didn’t have what it takes--a real strong will." Hector starts to provide her with the emotional support and lessons in life that her father seems incapable of giving.

Eventually, Diana goes to the Forum with Hector to see boxing matches. One night she meets a 19-year-old male featherweight named Adrian (Santiago Douglas) there, and after the fights are over, they go to a coffee shop together. While they eat, he asks "How come you train with Hector?" She answers, "I didn’t make the cheer leading team." She learns that Adrian hopes to turn pro and move away. Boxing is his way out of the projects. We get the feeling that Diana boxes for a deeper reason--because she has to. Later that evening Adrian explains that Karina, a girl who is always hanging around the gym, is "sometimes" his girlfriend, but the problem is, "We don’t have much to say to each other." Diana responds, "Sounds like most guys’ idea of a dream date." Soon romance blossoms between Diana and Adrian, and they exchange one of the sweetest first kisses I’ve ever seen in any movie.

One day while sparring, Diana gets a black eye. Then, when Adrian takes her home, her father looks out the window and sees them kissing. When Diana comes in, Dad tells her angrily that he’s discovered she’s stolen his money. Misinterpreting the cause of her black eye, he rides her about her boyfriend beating her. Unwilling to tell her father about the boxing, Diana stalks out and goes to Adrian’s, where she’s ready to make love with him, but he declines on the grounds that he’s training for a fight. Not long after, Diana goes to a party at Hector’s, where she sees Adrian kissing Karina and inserting a small cocktail umbrella into her décolletage.

Meanwhile, Diana is able to continue her training because her brother Tiny starts giving her his boxing lesson money, telling her, "I’m a geek. I’ll do something constructive with my time." And eventually, Diana’s boxing training pays off, and some of the other boxers at the gym reluctantly take notice that she’s improving. Then the State of New York issues a new gender-blind policy where men and women in the same weight class are allowed to fight each other, and one night when many boxers don’t show, Hector gets her a bout. But as luck would have it, her father wanders in during the match, sees her boxing, and storms out in disgust.

When Diana comes home, her father, who has been drinking heavily, confronts her in what for me is the most powerful scene in the film. They argue, and she tells him, "Everything I know about losing, I learned from you, Dad." They soon get into a scuffle, and Diana knocks him down and starts to kick him. We find out more about her mother’s suicide: "You just had to push her, didn’t you, Dad. Until she’d rather die than answer you." Tiny walks in and begs her to stop. She does, but tells her father contemptuously, "All these years, you just looked right through me."

The film then goes on to show more about how things work out for Diana at school, in boxing, and in her relationship with Adrian. And when the movie finally comes to an end, Diana faces a set of problems every bit as daunting as those she faced at the beginning. But the difference is that the world opened up to her through her boxing experiences has left her much better equipped to deal with these problems.

I really enjoyed Girlfight a lot and recommend it highly. Although it’s only a little movie, I think it offers some useful insights into the human condition. And in Diana Guzman, Michelle Rodriguez has created a character I’ll never forget.