★★★
“Punching up”
Truth be told, this took me two attempts to get through. The first foundered inside about thirty minutes, because I just wasn’t feeling it at the time. The movie made so little impression I managed to forget completely I’d seen it, and so it eventually made its way back onto my watch-list. When I realized this, I almost debated nixing it again; however, I persisted, and am at least somewhat glad I did. If falling well short of being a classic – not least, because of a twist ending which is both superfluous and a terrible misfire – there is enough here to merit a review.
Nora (Murray) is juggling several life elements, all of which demand more than she is able or prepared to give, and which are interfering with each other. Firstly, she has a mother, Catherine (Erb) with stage 4 cancer, requiring constant care. Then there’s her job, which involves cleaning motel rooms – and, to make ends meet, turning occasional tricks. Finally, there’s her actual passion: mixed martial-arts at a local gym, under the eagle eye of trainer Rosheen (Jones). Nora is there mostly as a sparring partner (read: punching-bag) for the more talented Aisha (Sanchez). But there’s a tournament for female MMA’ers coming up, with a $100,000 prize. That would take care of a lot of her problems, if she could win it. Life, however, appears to have other plans for her, not least her workmates’ intense, increasing dislike of her.
It’s a very earnest film, with not much in the way of light-hearted moments, beyond Catherine’s death-bed self-sarcasm. It stands almost entirely on the strength of Murray’s performance, which is intense to the point of occasionally being uncomfortable to watch. The MMA scenes are well-staged, the camera getting right in there with the participants, and incorporating some particularly good audio work (you can hear the muscles stretching). These elements work much better than the script, which is an awkward combination of sports movie cliche with kitchen-sink working-class drama, and is not particular convincing as either. In particular, there’s an attempt to shoehorn in a romantic subplot for Nora, which ends up being more cringeworthy than effective. Indeed, the same goes for the sexual tension between Nora and Aisha, though fortunately, that lasts just one scene.
The problem is that neither Nora nor the film need anyone else. She’s the very epitome of a strong, independent heroine, who is trying to make her way in life, through circumstances which would reduce most of us to a wreck in short order. Simply having her handle this would prove sufficient drama for most purposes. Neither the romantic entanglements nor the climactic tournament offer as much proof of life as, for example, her standing up against her part-time pimp. Then there’s that twist, which presumably seemed like a good idea. At some point. To someone or other. I can’t imagine when or who though. I would not be averse to seeing Murray in future, however, on the basis of her powerful performance here. Providing you are in the right mood, anyway.
Dir: Bailey Kobe
Star: Shannon Murray, Stephanie Erb, Dot-Marie Jones, Roxana Sanchez