It’s been a surprisingly good weekend for Barry Jenkins. It’s not often you see a movie underperform in its opening weekend only to rally and come back stronger in its second weekend, but that’s exactly what Mufasa: The Lion King did. And just as that happened, Jenkins came out with another and far better movie.

Jenkins wrote and produced The Fire Inside, with Rachel Morrison making her feature directing debut after coming up as a cinematographer under Ryan Coogler. This is the real-life story of Claressa “T-Rex” Shields (here immortalized by Ryan Destiny, a Detroit native), the boxing champion from Flint, Michigan. In her amateur boxing career from 2011 until she went pro in 2016, Shields racked up 64 wins (five by knockout) and only one loss. More famously, Shields remains the only boxer in history — male or female — to win two consecutive Olympic gold medals. That first gold medal came in 2012 — the first year when women’s boxing was a recognized Olympic sport — when Shields was only 17 years old.

This movie is centered around Claressa’s 2012 Olympic run, and the boxing scenes are appropriately kickass. The camerawork, the sound design, the fight choreography, it’s all top-notch. But what’s really interesting is that Claressa’s opponents are barely given any screen time or dialogue or development at all. None of her opponents matter as people in themselves, they’re really only important as bogeymen representing the spectres of failure and loss and shame.

More importantly, the big climactic boxing match happens an hour in. With 40 minutes left in the movie. There isn’t a single round of boxing in the entire third act. Because the diabolical secret of this movie is that it isn’t really about boxing at all. In fact, it’s about so many other things that I barely know where to start.

At the heart and core of this entire movie is the fact that Claressa is 17 years old. She’s at an age when she should be playing with friends, hanging out with boys, getting into trouble, making mistakes, studying for college, and everything else involved with life as a teenager. And she can’t do any of that because she’s training for the goddamn Olympics. What’s more, she’s training to compete against boxers twice her age, meaning that none of her opponents have to deal with the stress and distractions of juggling self-discovery with school responsibilities and family responsibilities and so on and so forth.

For that matter, Claressa is growing up in Flint, Michigan. The town that’s become a nationwide cultural shorthand for poverty beyond hope. Her dad’s in prison, her mother’s a narcissist who can’t keep a stable relationship or a loaded fridge, and her siblings have their own problems. It’s difficult for Claressa to keep moving forward when she’s got all these family problems and mounting debts holding her back.

Literally the only thing that’s keeping Claressa going, the only thing she’s focused on and the only thing anyone around her can talk about, is going to the 2012 Olympics and getting the gold. But what if she doesn’t get first place? Hell, what if she does?

If Claressa reaches the pinnacle of sports before she’s even turned 18, what is she supposed to do with the rest of her life? What good is a gold medal if it won’t help her pay the bills? Everyone keeps talking about this gold medal like it will put Flint back on the map and give everyone there some desperately needed hope, but is that honestly possible? It seems like whether Claressa goes to the Olympics and loses against boxers with twice her age and experience, or whether she wins the gold medal and fails to bring economic prosperity to her entire hometown overnight, the only possible outcome is crushing disappointment either way. No matter how unrealistic either of those expectations are.

Of course, there’s always the hope of lucrative endorsement deals, right? Not exactly. Remember, we’re dealing with an underage amateur boxer out of Flint, without any of the connections that might be available to a pro in Los Angeles. For another thing, we’re talking about a mainstream media landscape that’s only interested in portraying female athletes as sex symbols, something Claressa is neither willing nor able to be. And even if Claressa is willing to leave behind her home and family and turn herself into something she isn’t, her best-case scenario is still making only a fraction of the money offered to a vastly less-qualified male athlete.

And let’s not forget Claressa’s coach. Jason Crutchfield (a career-best performance from Brian Tyree Henry) has more or less accepted Claressa as a surrogate daughter, giving her a stable home and a shelter in the process of training her to be a world-class athlete. In fact, the film repeatedly demonstrates how Claressa and Jason have developed such a rapport after so much shared history, it’s a serious handicap if Claressa goes into a big fight with anyone else in her corner.

(Side note: For those who are wondering, it sounds like Shields and Crutchfield have both given the film their enthusiastic blessing. Also, Shields is credited as an exec producer on the film.)

That said, the film briefly mentions that Jason used to be an accomplished boxer himself once upon a time. We never get the details, but it’s clear that somewhere along the way, he lost it all or gave it all up for a home and a family and a stable job, volunteering to teach kids how to box in run-down Flint. Is Jason going through all this with Claressa to try and chase after those long-lost glory days? Or is he trying to keep Claressa from making the mistakes that brought him to where he is now? Maybe both?

I hasten to add that while Jason is the closest thing to a father that Claressa’s got, it bears repeating that her biological family is still in the picture. And even though they’ve contributed nothing to Claressa’s boxing career, she’s still their best (maybe even their only) chance at getting above water. That said, while Jason has a stable day job, this is still Flint and he’s struggling to break even just like everyone else. So there’s definitely a question of who stands to benefit most from Claressa’s continued success and what — if anything — she owes to either family.

So, are there any nitpicks? Well, everything I’ve found on Shields’ actual life shows that her father had been out of prison since she was 11, and it was her father — a former boxer in his own right — who encouraged her to take up boxing in the first place. In the movie, it’s strongly implied that Clarence “Bo” Shields (here played by Adam Clark) didn’t get on parole until halfway through the screentime, and his proclamation that he got his daughter started on boxing comes off as hot air. Sure, Bo does get a bit of screentime as a foil to Jason, but it sounds like a lot more could’ve been done with that angle.

Come to think of it, the supporting cast probably could’ve been stronger. Don’t get me wrong, Idrissa Sanogo does a serviceable job playing the love interest, finding just the right balance of playing a horny preening teenager without making the character unlikeable. And I appreciate how Sarah Allen plays the voice of the white heteronormative patriarchy with just enough nuance and compassion that she’s not merely an embodiment of systemic racism. Even so, both of these characters definitely read less like people who really existed and more like fictional devices brought in for expedience of storytelling.

But of course the major nitpick comes with the sexual assault mention. (CONTENT WARNING) Yes, we do get a scene in which Claressa briefly mentions getting sexually abused by a friend of the family. To be clear, this does appear to be a thing that actually happened. That said, I don’t know if dropping that particular bomb was wise or necessary when nothing really comes of it and the movie keeps going like it never happened.

Overall, what we’ve got with The Fire Inside are two star-making lead turns from Ryan Destiny and Brian Tyree Henry, some visceral boxing sequences, timely and incisive social commentary, and a heaping helping of compelling character drama. It all evens out to a sports biopic that subverts the tropes and expectations of the genre in the service of crafting a damn fine coming-of-age story.

Based on everything I’ve read about the topic, it looks like the movie only falls short because the real life story of Claressa Shields is so much more fascinating and layered than any 100-minute narrative could sufficiently portray. That said, I have no problem giving this movie a full recommendation. I know it’s a crowded holiday season and a lot of high-profile movies are coming out, but don’t let this one pass you by.