In 1930 Brooklyn, six-year-old Georgia Nolan, Maya Misaljevic, dreams of becoming a fireman like her father, Shawn Nolan, Kenneth Branagh, who left firefighting to become a tailor to better care for her after her mother’s death. When he tells her that women aren’t allowed to be firemen, Georgia pretends to give up the dream and follows in his footsteps as a seamstress, but secretly trains on a rooftop for the next decade, with Ember, her loyal Dalmatian companion, Shoshana Sperling, along for the ride.
Ten years later, in 1940, Mayor Murray William Shatner asks Shawn to come out of retirement to head a new, young team of firefighters to combat a serial arsonist who uses purple gas to hypnotize others and has led to the disappearances of other firefighters. Wishing to help, Georgia disguises herself as a man named Joe and joins the squad.
While in disguise, Joe meets the other firefighters: Jinn, a fast-driving Chinese colleague who loves speed but suffers from narcolepsy, and Ricardo, a Spanish-American who gained muscle from helping his father at the steel mill but harbors a true passion for chemistry, enabling him to calculate the best and safest ways to extinguish fires. Ricardo is Ryan W. Garcia.
The team’s path leads them to a last-standing concert hall, where Laura Devine, an African-American opera diva Mara Junot, keeps breaking in to rehearse her upcoming musical. When asked to leave, she retorts with a memory of growing up under Jim Crow, recounting phrases like the choke points of racism: “no” to eating off the good plates, “no” to kissing the baby, and “no” you must use the outhouse like the other staff. Laura saved every penny to come to New York and pursue her dream, and when the lead singer “fell” from the stage, she hijacked the show and refused to leave, prompting her assistant Pauline to try to suspend her with a rope. The crank handle snaps off, sending Laura crashing through the stage floor and leaving her in a full body cast.
> no don't eat off the good plates
> no don't kiss the baby
> no you must use the outhouse like the other staff
Laura Devine’s stand against injustice draws Pauline, Laurie Holden, into the orbit of these events. Pauline’s earlier failures to land steady work push her toward a revelation about Laura’s past ambitions in chemistry and special effects, a realization that fuels a complex dynamic between them.
In what might be their final hours, Joe reveals his identity and fails to hide the toll his path has taken, while Shawn opens up about a past failure: he couldn’t save a couple from a fire sixteen years earlier, the moment he handed their newborn daughter to safety and promised to always protect her. This memory shapes his perspective on guardianship and demonstrates that the barrier of “girls can’t be firemen” was rooted in protection, not permission. Georgia, recognizing her father’s intent, decides that she will fight fires anyway, affirming that the barrier existed to shield her, not define her.
With renewed resolve, Shawn and Ember work to free the hypnotized firefighters, and Georgia sets her sights on Pauline, who becomes a focal point in the climactic confrontation. Pauline is ultimately arrested, and Georgia steps forward to join the station as a bona fide firefighter, marking a personal victory and a professional milestone for her—and a broader note about women in the fire service.
The credits close on a sobering historical reminder: the film’s portrayal implies that the other female firefighters didn’t receive equal pay until 1982, underscoring the slow, ongoing fight for gender equality in the field.
