Heavyweight | OBSCURAE @ Raindance 2025

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The Opening Gala film of Raindance 2025, "Heavyweight" was perhaps my most anticipated film on the schedule. I am a sucker for intelligent character studies, and nowhere has been less studied, really, than those key, fragile moments before a boxing match.

I was expecting to be disappointed - because it's such a high bar to hit. Instead, it surpassed my expectations.

In this modern era of Boxing renaissance, this film is well timed - and director Christopher M. Anthony (Technician on James Bond, Harry Potter and X-Men) has a refreshingly cutthroat style here, without frills or overindulgence - a style that mimics, and at times works against, the energy that Derek's trainer (played by Nicholas Pinnock) is trying to cultivate in that changing room.

So much is built with so little - so much backstory, so much tension - built in this one room, with a handful of characters who all feel completely grounded and real. Real men, dealing with real pressures - both internal and external - reacting in real ways.

The camera isn't precious with them, but it's beautifully observational, almost like theatre; allowing the actors to do their best work without too much interference. The choreography alone, of all the players within this room, is quite brilliant - at times claustrophobic, but often times almost suffocatingly large, empty, prison-like.

An absolutely star-making performance from Jordan Bolger holds together a very sprawling group of characters, and a pivotal scene in the middle (with another absolutely mind-blowing performance from Osy Ikhile) takes this feature from surface level to the ultimate depth.

This is the kind of cinema you can only achieve when it's from the heart.