Bruised

Jackie Justice left cage fighting years ago by running out of the ring. Now she cleans houses, drinks, and lives with a manager who beats her. Her six-year-old son is left at her door: a child she has not seen for years, sent to her because his father has died. A fight offer arrives at the same time. The subject is not sport but a woman who hates herself managing to stay in the same room as her child. The film's best scenes are not in the ring; they are in the silence between a mother and a boy who will not speak. The form is hard and close. The camera stays on the body and the fights are shot as exhaustion rather than choreography. The training sections carry less music and more breathing than the genre usually allows. The story behind it is interesting. In Michelle Rosenfarb's screenplay Jackie was a twenty-one-year-old white Irish Catholic fighter and Blake Lively had been attached to star. Halle Berry proposed turning the character into a middle-aged Black woman, and by the end of the process agreed to direct as well. It is her first film as director. Sheila Atim plays the trainer and Adan Canto the manager. Who it is for: viewers who like fight drama and performances where the actor pushes hard. Who it is not for: anyone expecting it to leave the template; the narrative follows a familiar rise.