“The Fire Inside,” about boxer Claressa “T-Rex” Shields, is not your standard inspirational sports drama, even if it feels like it for the first half of the movie.

There’s the hopeless dream, the difficult home life, the blighted community, the devoted coach, the training montages, the setbacks and, against all odds, the win. We’ve seen this kind of story before, you might think, and you’d be right. But then the movie pulls the rug out from under you: The victory is not the end.

“The Fire Inside,” directed by Rachel Morrison and written by Barry Jenkins, is as much about what happens after the win. It’s not always pretty or inspirational, but it is truthful, and important.

Claressa Shields, played by Ryan Destiny in the film, was only 17 when she went to the 2012 London Olympics. Everything was stacked against her, including the statistics: No American woman had ever won an Olympic gold medal in the sport before. Her opponents had years on her. She was still navigating high school in Flint, Michigan, and things on the home front were volatile and lacking. Food was sometimes scarce as was consistent parental care. Her mother (Olunike Adeliyi) even kicks her out of the home at one point. But Claressa has a savior on her side in the form of her coach, Jason Crutchfield, played by Bryan Tyree Henry.

Coach Crutchfield is the one who gives an 11-year-old Claressa a shot in the first place and sticks with her through everything. And she can be a lot to handle, especially post-Olympics when reality comes crashing down. She might have a little more money and the pride of her hometown behind her, but the sponsors are not calling. The male athletes in that 2012 class seem to have skyrocketed to wealth, while she’s thinking about pawning her medal to afford groceries and diapers for her sister’s baby. And she’s not handling it well, or at least how people think a young woman should handle such inequalities. That titular fire inside is in danger of fizzling out before she’s even reached 20 and she’s wondering what it was all for.

This is the truth of so many Olympic athletes, and professionals as well, that no one really wants to talk about. That glory is guaranteed to be short lived, probably without a multimillion-dollar deal, and then you just have to figure out what to do with the rest of your life.

Morrison is a celebrated cinematographer known for “Black Panther,” making her feature debut as a director. And it’s a promising one.

It would have been so easy to just focus on Claressa’s achievements, which are still ongoing. But it is infinitely more rewarding and authentic to show the in-between instead: Surviving that is the real test, after all./Associated Press

(“The Fire Inside” contains brief suggestive material, thematic elements, some strong language.)

‘THE FIRE INSIDE’

Rated PG-13. At the AMC Boston Common, South Bay Center, Causeway, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport and suburban theaters

Grade: B+