Girlfigh a coming-of-age story about boxing and love, its also Karyn Kusama's directorial debut, telling the story of how a girl finds herself in the world of boxing.One does not see many movies about women's boxing so often actually there very few. Diana lives with her brother and single dad, Sandro, in a housing project in Red Hook. Each week Sandro pays a local trainer to put some meat and muscle on his son, but when Diana decides she, too, wants to be a boxer, he refuses. With dogged determination, Diana begins a grueling training regimen, the discipline, cunning, and humility required to be a contender are the cold shower Diana needs to focus her ambitions. But when she falls in love with a promising amateur, her priorities are forced into burning focus...it looks like a good plot, but here is when the movie looses me for a movie about a female boxing there's not much of that, she spends the majority of the movie fighting men,there is a sole fight against another female witch is done pretty well it capture exactly what should look like when two people are boxing,but after that she only goes against men.surprisingly in this world which Kusama tries to give a real perspective of what is boxing in the shoes of a woman,decides to create a inter gender tournament because its so hard to find opponent's in a city like New York, were Diana and her love interest face one another,mixed boxing which is not sanctioned by any legitimate governing body, and are almost always intended to be a display in erotic exhibitionism.If the intention was to see how a woman can beat a man by sheer determination It never goes well in combat, because the man is in a no win situation on one hand he beats a woman which our society sees it as the outcome of the contest in the other hand he looses to the women he is seen as a weakling, besides we only see Diana train a few months and have ONE amateur sanction bout in the hole movie against the only female fighter in the movie and her love interest as been fighting for alonger period so in terms of skill and experience its more likely he would whip the floor with her.Do all female boxers have to best men to prove their equal? or they can show as great athlete's by besting themselves.The ending is very unrealistic for the simple fact that this type of tournament would exist and be sanctioned by the state of New York, had this movie been set in a state were only football is the only sport would make a more interesting scenario were the lack of support and opponents is more visible but NY is the cradle of the golden gloves.

I saw this movie twice. I thought Michelle Rodriquez was quite believable in her role; nice balance between being a tough yet feminine. Family situation also fairly realistic. I liked the way she handled her father. I thought the situation in which she found herself with her boyfriend was a twist I didn't anticipate. Made the movie suspenseful. I thought there were some good lessons for young people in this movie; finding yourself, not giving up, trusting, respect, what is love. There was no down time with this movie. It was suspenseful. When I watch a movie and I feel totally exhausted by the end and hate to see it end; I know it was a good movie. Such was the case. The relationship she had with her boyfriend was refreshing. I wish the movie was longer. I wanted to see how her career evolved . I would have liked to see whether her father could figure out how to have a relationship with her. Definitely a "new age" girl. Highly recommend this movie.

Michelle Rodriguez is a well-built high-school senior who discovers that she has a powerful punch and begins amateur training at a Brooklyn gym. Santiago Douglas is a a handsome young man, barely older than she, who also trains there. They meet after class, so to speak, and feel attracted to each other. No sex. Santiago has been instructed to save it for his next bout.Both are participants in a "gender-blind" athletic program that makes no distinctions between males and females, a misguided attempt to level the athletic playing field.A conservative radio commentator recently announced -- and I swear I'm not making this up -- "Let's face it; the president is black." I'm here to make an equally perspicacious observation -- "Men and women are different." Now, in 99 cases out of 100, this needn't make any difference in physical performance. But in the top one percent -- trained athletes whose skills have been honed to a fine edge -- men generally have the advantage. With their narrow hips they can run faster. And they have greater muscle mass and upper torso strength. These differences in body build make it possible for women to give birth and raise children and for men to catch and kill food for them. This sexual bifurcation is the result of the perfectly normal process of natural selection. Without it, there might not be any humans at all. And that, boys and girls, is why they have men's events and women's events at the Olympics. I speak to you as your anthropologist. That will be ten cents, PayPal preferred.That's why I called this gender-blind program misguided. As talented a boxer as Rodrigues is, as she approaches the zenith of the game, she will eventually lose to a male.That's where the complication arises in this movie. Rodrigues is finally matched against her boy friend, Douglas. Neither wants to loose any anger on the other, not to mention roundhouse rights, but the pride of both is at stake, and the pride is both personal and gender related. Douglas refuses to fight a woman in the ring. And Rodriguez is offended by what she sees as his patronizing attitude. It ends happily.I wasn't really expecting much from the film. I thought it would be a rip off of Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby" until I discovered that this was released years earlier. And I'd never heard of the director or of any of the performers. That sort of obscurity generally augers ill -- made-for-television weepers and so forth.But I was surprised at how neatly this is put together. The total absence of bathos left me open mouthed. So did the minimal use of boxing clichés -- the frayed ropes, the blood, the cutting of the swollen eye, the battered post-bout faces, the fat and sweaty onlooker shouting "Kill him!", the slow motion landing of glove on nose, the spray of sweat from the mauled head, the heroic music signaling the long-awaited apotheosis of the victor. None of that here -- well, almost none. The whole plot could be considered formulaic. Tough kid finds outlet in the ring, etc.The feeling you're left with is that this is probably pretty much what these amateur contests are like. Different from those we see on TV and in ordinary movies. No bells ring, for instance, Instead a dancing and observant referee yells "Stop!" And "Box!" The contestants wear head gear. The gym is populated not by a crowd of cheering spectators, but only by a handful of people who have some particular interest in the goings on. It's a clean movie, despite the rather grim setting and the unhappy family dynamics.Michelle Rodriguez can look pretty mean, what with her muscular bulk and her eyes glowing under her lowered brow, but once you get used to the idea that this is a girl who can beat you to a pulp anytime she wants, and once you hear the feminine contours of her supersegmentals, she ain't bad. (A scene in which she battles her father to the floor is overdoing it.) It was a little hard to understand Douglas's restraint when Rodriguez crawls all over him in bed. The director, Karyn Kusama, has chosen her talent carefully.Shows what you can do with some talent, imagination, and a modicum of money. There ought to be more films like it. Take one of those multi-billion dollar blockbusters full of dinosaurs or space ships and spread the generosity around a little.

Diana Guzman is an angry young woman. Surviving an unrelenting series of disappointments and traumas, she takes her anger out on the closest targets.When she sees violence transformed and focused by discipline in a rundown boxing club, she knows she's found her home. The film progresses from there, as Diana learns the usual coming-of-age lessons alongside the skills needed for successful boxing. Michelle Rodriguez is very good in the role, particularly when conveying the focused rage of a young woman hemmed in on all sides and fighting against not just personal circumstances but entrenched sexism.The picture could use some finesse in its direction of all the young actors, who pale in comparison to the older, more experienced cast. There are too many pauses in the script, which detracts from the dramatic tension. The overall quietness of the film drains it of intensity. This is a good picture to see once, if only to see the power of a fully realized young woman whose femininity is complex enough to include her power. Its limitations prevent it from being placed in the "see it again and again" category.