It has been a long time since I've seen any movie that totally grabbed me and kept my undivided interest throughout. Girlfight did this to me—so much so that my mind never wandered for even a few seconds.
That's how I know Girlfight was a good movie—arguably the second-greatest "boxing" movie ever made. (Scorcese's Raging Bull remains the heavyweight champ: You've got to knock out the champion instead of relying on a split decision.)

From the opening staccato Latino beat (with Spanish guitar), with the camera panning up to Diana’s face, to the final freeze-frame 2 hours later, I was mesmerized. The camera lingers on Diana’s face. What is there? Is this sadness, or is it hostility?

Whatever it was, I was hooked at the beginning, drawn further into Diana’s character, and I really cared about her. That's part of the power behind Girlfight.

Diana demonstrates her short fuse early on and is brought to the principal's office. It is obviously not the first time. Diana has issues and has difficulty dealing with anger. When she comes home and finds her father playing poker and drinking beer, we get a sense that Diana suffers from family problems. Her mother is dead, and her father hardly exists for her.

Soon we see Diana in an old boxing gym—the kind we might imagine Mike Tyson to have trained in when he too was growing up in Brooklyn. It is a guy’s place, filled with machismo. Diana has come to meet up with her brother, Sandro.

Though Latino culture demands machismo, Sandro’s real dream is to attend art school. He only takes boxing lessons because his father demands that he learn and because his father pays for the lessons. We get a clue that the traditional Latino roles are about to shift in Girlfight when Diana lands a vicious blow to Tiny for sucker punching her brother.

It doesn't take long for Diana to become fascinated with boxing and ask about training. Her whole body longs for boxing. Her desire to learn the sport is so intense that I laughed when aerobics was suggested as a substitute. Diana's biggest challenge is coming up with the $10 per lesson. Her father pays for Sandro's lessons to prepare him for the world, but he certainly is not going to pay for Diana's boxing lessons.

Obstacles do not stop dreamers, and Diana finds ways to get her boxing lessons. Her private coach, Hector, is very good and Diana makes a lot of progress. One of the boxers takes special notice of Diana. This is Adrian, an aspiring boxer who wants to go professional.

Adrian's appearance complicates Diana's life. She wonders if Adrian wants friendship or if he wants more. What about his girlfriend? Then guess who Diana is matched against in the ring after she becomes a skilled boxer? I won't spoil any more of the plot; besides, the story's construction is not the part that transfixed me to the screen during the 110-minute run time.


Film Elements

Lead Actress

The most striking aspect of Girlfight: Michelle Rodriguez.

Answering an open call, Rodriguez was about the 300th girl to test for the lead role. Rhis is her first speaking role. This is remarkable, because she absolutely melts the camera.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that this boxing movie will rely on fast action to cover her acting (a la Bruce Willis). Director Kusama has the cinematographer linger longer on Rodriguez's face, in the style of Ingmar Bergman, so we catch her subtly changing emotions.

Near the beginning, when Diana's father is talking with the school official, watch the close-up capture Diana’s evolving reactions to this phone call. Then, watch her face when Hector takes her to watch her first professional match. This is truly a magical moment. Without words, we know Diana has fallen in love with boxing.

Rodriguez is a natural, as if she just strode in from the streets and took to the boxing ring. But she is no one-trick-pony. I was amazed at the subtleties and range she demonstrates, and what a presence she has on-screen!

The way she dominates the camera reminds me of the way John Travolta bolted into big-screen stardom as Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever. Rodriguez could become a huge star. and is definitely one to keep track of. I am truly hard-pressed to think of another actress who commands the kind of powerful, independent presence Rodriguez does. Pencil her in for an Oscar nomination.


Supporting Actors

Santiago Douglas makes Adrian a likable young man and goes beyond the usual stereotypes of the Latino boyfriend with boxing aspirations. Though Douglas has done stage work and some TV work, this is his first big movie role, and he carries it off perfectly. According to Kusama, Douglas is the only actor she could find who could stand up to Rodriguez.

Both Douglas and Rodriguez make their budding romance seem realistic. We don’t get the perfectly choreographed encounters of a Humphrey Bogart-Ingrid Bergman or Cary Grant-Eva Marie-Saint love affair. Instead, we have two adolescents awkwardly attempting to express their feelings, just the way it would actually happen.

Their first tentative screen kisses provide a few screen chuckles as Adrian attempts to describe it as "sweet" while Diana remarks that she had always thought of herself as "salty." Later, Adrian admits to Diana he doesn't know what to do in terms of showing his love. This is so refreshing, after seeing many other teen film romances that have the lovers jumping under the sheets after nearly immediate passionate kissing.

Another notable supporting acting job is turned in by Jaime Tirelli, who plays Diana’s trainer much more believably than Burgess Meredith did in Rocky. Tirelli is a veteran actor who has done much character and stage work, but he will be remembered as Hector. His lessons about life and about boxing feel like the real thing.


Screenplay

Much of the credit for the realism in Girlfight must go to Kusama's screenplay. She wrote the original draft in 1995, and continued to revise it, as any professional does. She knows the boxing territory and understands the idea of a woman entering and competing in a man's world: She has experienced both.

Kusama started boxing a number of years ago, and she has said she was struck by the purity of the sport. She experienced what Diana does.

As Kusama describes it, "First time I had to spar I was put with a beautiful boy named Adrian who was wearing shorts and rosary beads."

There's a scene that directly parallels Kusama's first sparring match: Diana and Adrian are sparring, and they clinch. When they do so, Diana says "I love you." A touch of humor in the film, but Kusama recalls that this type of thing actually happened to her during that sparring session (although her Adrian was saying "Hit me").

Kusama masterfully incorporates her agenda into the script without appearing too manipulative. She succeeds at creating "a meaty role for a woman" and brings us a Latino film that goes against stereotypes, unlike the pitiful Price of Glory.

She shows that there are "just as many pissed off girls as boys" and showcases the diversity in the Latino culture that she had come to know in Brooklyn. She didn’t initially set out to specialize in doing a movie about women in sports; it simply became the metaphor for her larger purpose of showcasing a strong woman with "emotional, intellectual, and spiritual strength."

She does go against the traditional machismo ideas of Latino culture in a rather obvious (but effective) way. She contrasts Diana and her brother, Sandro, by switching their roles.

Though Latina women are not expected to go into boxing, nor are Latino men expected to seek artistic careers and step away from machismo boxing lessons. Although not developed fully, Sandro’s motivations are duly noted. We feel confident Sandro will be his own person and pursue his dreams without feeling confined to the artificial expectations of his culture.


Cinematography and Sound

The camera work is remarkably well-done. I'd love to have some boxing stills from Girlfight. The shots come very close to the black-and-white visual poetry of Scorcese's classic Raging Bull. We feel like we are inside Diana's head when she's in the ring, and the cinematographer is responsible for this intimate view.

Speaking of intimacy, I loved the decisions the cinematographer and director make with their lingering shots of Diana's face. The camera stays on her face far longer than many American films do. Just when we would ordinarily expect a cut or reaction shot we are allowed to see Diana change right on screen. I love the "foreign film" feel of this independent flick.

I was concerned at first about the sound quality in an early scene in the girls' restroom (it sounded very thin, like home movies do), but the sound did improve in later scenes. I imagine the sound quality was enhanced for the wide-release version: Kusama said it would be remixed.

Another likeable quality: the lightly scored soundtrack. We are not overburdened with schmaltzy, sentimental strings. Instead, we are treated to occasional Latino beat music to accompany some of the punching-bag and boxing sequences. An additional reason to be able to sit back and enjoy a non-Hollywood production.


Director

As much as Kusama attempts to give Rodriguez credit for dominating Girlfight, it clearly signals that Kusama is a director to be reckoned with. Kusama had precise goals for what she wanted to portray, and she succeeds. She was very much in control here, from selecting the cast, to getting the exact feel she wanted for the training gym, to doing all the background things necessary to get the project off the ground.

Kusama shows she is a true film-lover. She attended New York University's film school, graduating around 1990. She has done what all successful directors must do—she obsessively watched a lot of films, found some mentors, and learned visual literacy, discarding the items that don’t work for her. These are all evident in Girlfight. Although it's her first feature, it feels like it is crafted by an experienced, visionary director.




It’s relatively rare when I see a film that captures me completely from the first view and feels so perfectly constructed and involving that I remember scenes vividly many days after. Citizen Kane does that to me, as do many of Hitchcock's films. More recently, I can think of Do the Right Thing, which compares closely to Girlfight. Spike Lee and Karyn Kusama both have social agendas, use Brooklyn as their background, have unique and creative visual styles, and come from an independent filmmaker's perspective.

*Note: There was a special showing of Girlfight at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts on 4/24/2000. Director Karyn Kusama was on hand to comment after the movie, so her quotes are from this session.