The first time boxer Claressa Shields watched The Fire Inside, a cinematic rendering of her life story which releases in theaters on Dec. 25, she tried to remove herself from the equation. She pretended the story was about some other athlete from Flint, Mich. growing up in poverty and chasing an Olympic dream. Shields planned to watch the film with a neutral eye, and give it a grade, as she typically likes to do when viewing sports flicks.

This exercise lasted all of 10 minutes. “I definitely put myself into it,” says Shields. Who wouldn’t, when watching themselves depicted on the screen? The performance of Ryan Destiny, who portrayed Shields, stunned the two-time gold medalist: she was able to capture Shields’ mannerisms, both inside and outside the ring. Shields, in both The Fire Inside and in real life, overcame a difficult childhood—and doubts about the appropriateness of female fighters in the ring—to become America’s first female boxing gold medalist, at the debut of Olympic women’s boxing at the London 2012 Games. She’s also America’s first and only back-to-back Olympic boxing champion, as she won again four years later in Rio. And currently, Shields ranks as the top pound-for-pound professional boxer on the planet, according to ESPN.

“I was just like, ‘wow, look at where we started, and look at where we are now,’” Shields, 29, tells TIME. “This is how you turn your pain into power.”

The Fire Inside effectively packs two films into one. While many movies would have ended with Shields winning the gold medal in London, to neatly wrap the traditional rags-to-riches redemption story, The Fire Inside—which was written by Barry Jenkins, director and co-writer of the 2016 best-picture Oscar winner Moonlight—takes viewers to an often-unexplored place: the months following an Olympic triumph, which for far too many athletes outside high-visibility sports like gymnastics and swimming is filled with disappointment, and sometimes despair. The expected financial windfalls often never come. They question the point of their pursuits.

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) Synopsis: THE FIRE INSIDE is the inspirational true story of Claressa Shields, arguably the greatest female boxer of all time. Claressa, a high school Junior from Flint, Michigan, aided by her tough-love coach, Jason Crutchfield, pushes past all limitations to become the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in boxing. But even at the pinnacle of success, Claressa has to reckon with the fact that not all dreams are created equal, and the real fight has only just begun..

Claressa Shields (Ryan Destiny) was met with opposition at every turn inside and outside of the boxing ring. The U.S.A. wasn’t a women’s boxing powerhouse. It would never be a woman’s boxing powerhouse. There’s no point in trying. Besides, girls should be in the kitchen, not the gym. Even her coach, Jason Crutchfield Brian Tyree Henry) wasn’t particularly interested or optimistic about training a female boxer. Claressa endured and fought with more than just a chip on her shoulder. She carried the weight of every woman who wanted to lace up a pair of boxing gloves.

And then success. How do you know when you’ve achieved it? Is it a metal or a trophy? Or is it a bank account brimming with endorsement money? When you are a trailblazer is burning the path enough?