Literally coming out of nowhere, Karyn Kusama's Girlfight took the critics by surprise and became the favorite at Sundance. Six months later, in the midst of Oscar hopeful releases, Sony's Screen Gems division has released Girlfight to the public and the result is spectacular. While the actual plot line itself isn't really anything new - a struggling teen looks for a sport to keep her out of trouble and turns to boxing, a sport which then changes her life for the better... - the film itself delivers great directing, acting, and subplots to make up for the overall plot line. Starring relative unknown Michelle Rodriguez as Diana, a stuggling youth getting into too much trouble in high school, she decides to try boxing (as her brother is doing) after school. After being told that no girl can box on par with a boy, she gives it 110% to prove them wrong.

Eventually, at the gym, we watch as Diana advances in her studies and as she takes an interest in fellow boxer, Adrian (Santiago Douglas). As with any movie involving love and sports, the two are eventually scheduled to fight each other (for the title no less) which leads to the usual tension. Although we've seen it done before, Karyn is able to take this match and build it up with a way that you really don't know the outcome, nor do you want to know before it's over. Sure, this type of movie can be taken on by any director with any actors, but Karyn directs Michelle, Santiago, Jaime (Hector, Michelle's coach), and the others with such precision and aforesight, the end result is a film, that has its minor flaws, but is superb in almost every way.

While Girlfight delivers a message of woman-empowerment, this isn't the main theme. Even though the protagonist just so happens to be female, I don't think that the movie should be taken as a statement about women, but rather that if you put yourself into any one thing, through practice, failure, and hardships, you can achieve anything you want. Girlfight takes this theme, combines it with a great debut performance by Rodriguez and strong directorial debut by Kusama (this was her first screenplay as well), and the end result, is probably the best sports-related film of the year - even though it rises above sports alone with a message of empowerment that itself rises above gender lines.

Genres: Drama, Indie, Sports, Boxing
Rated: R
Runtime: 110 minutes
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