From the Collection: Girlfight

Karyn Kusama’s directorial debut Girlfight is the latest film to enter the Criterion Collection.

Bullied by her father at home and feeling adrift at school, Diana Guzman (Michelle Rodriguez) finds refuge in an unexpected pocket of her native Brooklyn—a timeworn boxing gym, where she learns to channel her strength, discovers a sense of community, and falls for a rival fighter. In Karyn Kusama’s raw, understated feature debut, Rodriguez commands the screen with both tightly coiled intensity and deep wells of vulnerability as a young woman hitting back at society’s expectations and her own personal demons. Capturing the full emotional weight of Diana’s journey and the kinetic thrill of bodies in motion, Kusama crafts a singularly uncompromising story of self-realization.

Here’s what the disc includes:

• New 4K digital restoration, supervised by director Karyn Kusama and director of photography Patrick Cady, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• Audio commentary featuring Kusama
• Body and Soul: Karyn Kusama on “Girlfight,” a new program on the film by Alexandre O. Philippe
• Interviews with editor Plummy Tucker and composer Theodore Shapiro
• Storyboard-to-film comparison with commentary from Kusama
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by author Carmen Maria Machado
• New cover by Jillian Adel

Girlfight marked the directorial debut of Karyn Kusama and the first time we ever saw Michelle Rodriguez on screen and what a dynamite way for both to kick off their careers. Girlfight is an excellent sports movie and indie drama about breaking gender lines in sports and identity. Kusama’s filmmaking is raw and passionate, and it helps make the boxing sequences feel more realistic while helping show us Diana’s (Rodriguez) progression as a fighter. At the beginning of the film, when Diana first starts boxing, the boxing matches feel unpolished, much like Diana as a boxer. But by the end of the film, the fights are flashier, cleaner, and better constructed, showing how good Diana is now as a fighter. It’s smart direction by Kusama, especially considering it was her first film. Rodriguez is the heart and soul at the center of the film, giving a performance of great emotional depth and physical commitment. It is the best performance of her career.

The 4k restoration of the film on this Blu-ray looks sensational. There is a lot of life in the real-world settings Kusama shoots in the film and the restoration makes them pop on the screen. There is also a cool and interesting feature on the disc called Body and Soul: Karyn Kusama on “Girlfight,” from director Alexandre O. Philippe, one of the great documentarians about movies working today, that finds Kusama breaking down the film. I love hearing directors talk about their films, so this was a real treat.

Girlfight won the U.S. Dramatic Prize (best movie) at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival (tied with Kenneth Lonergan’s You Can Count on Me) and is one of the best films to win that prize. This is an outstanding indie film and one of the best sports films of the 2000s.

You can buy the Criterion Collection edition of Girlfight at the Criterion website or anywhere Criterion Collection movies are sold.

More From the Collection

Imitation of Life

Three Colors Trilogy

Last Hurrah for Chivilary

The Fisher King

Targets

One False Move

Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams

Drylongso

The Runner

Werckmeister Harmonies

From the Collection is an analysis piece of non-new-release movies, whether seen on DVD, streaming, or in a theater, and includes a brief history of the film, a review of the film, and content about the experience of seeing the film and/or the contents of the film’s DVD.

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