Plot

Diana, without her father knowing it, trains as a boxer and achieves impressive success, blazing new trails for female boxers.

At 18, Diana has a chip on her shoulder; she's close to expulsion from high school for fighting, her mother is dead, her dad is surly, the popular girls at school set her teeth on edge, she knows men can cause pain. When she picks up her younger brother at a Brooklyn gym where he boxes to please his father, she decides she wants to train. Hector, a coach, reluctantly agrees to teach her. It's soon clear to him that Diana has talent; he pushes her. She spends time with another young fighter, Adrian, who has a girlfriend, but Diana intrigues him and stirs real feelings he tries to articulate. She, too, must accommodate her toughness and ironic detachment to her feelings for him.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Breaking new ground in women's boxing may seem like an unlikely way to advance the cause of women's issues. Aren't there more important problems like pay equity and childcare to address? Yes, but boxing reaches out in a visceral way to viewers too worn down by life's own battles to do more than manage to pay the mortgage and get the kids off to school each morning. So by gaining access to the viewers through boxing, this film does further our national discussion of serious issues facing young women.

Regardless of your position on the sport of boxing, this film allows views to address serious themes of sexism, gender identities for men and women, sexual stereotypes for both men and women, and the role of parental figures. The character development of Diana is somewhat formulaic, but some formulas work and should be applied in new arenas. This is a suitable arena for the hero's journey. And Diana (Michelle Rodriguez) notice the reference to the Greek goddess of the hunt embarks on a journey that is not easy as a woman, an athlete, or an "at-risk" teen. Girlfight does what movies are supposed to do: provide entertaining ways to introduce topics about the human experience that viewers end up discussing long after the popcorn and soda are gone.