Based on the true story of WWE wrestler Paige, Stephen Merchant’s Fighting With My Family follows a tried and true formula of rags to riches story. While it only offers a little in terms of something we haven’t seen hundreds of thousands of times in the theater, it does provide us with a new avenue: that of a World Wrestling Entertainment superstar. Starring Saraya (Florence Pugh – A Good Person, Don’t Worry Darling) as Paige, this movie tells her story and the story of her entire working-class English town, where they own an inviting wrestling gym and run an independent wrestling league.
The 18-year-old Saraya and her brother Zak (Jack Lowden – Dunkirk, A United Kingdom) make their hard-earned daily dollar by teaching wrestling classes to children in the family gym. The family teaches the kids to make the moves properly while providing all students with a safe and positive environment. Both also perform as wrestlers in the amateur wrestling league fun by their father, the lovable ex-con Ricky (Nick Frost – Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), and spark plug of a mother Julia (Lena Headey – HBO’s Game of Thrones). It is Zak’s dream to make it to the WWE. Of course, it is Saraya’s dream, too, but it always feels like she wouldn’t be disappointed if she didn’t reach this goal, whereas it seems like it would devastate Zak. Saraya’s dream of the WWE involves Zak making it to professional wrestling’s pinnacle with her.
Saraya gets her shot to show off her stuff when WWE development talent coordinator/recruiter and tough-love but accommodating and understanding coach Hutch (Vince Vaughn – Old School, The Internship) comes to England looking for the next round of developmental wrestlers for the company’s rookie NXT program. Saraya impresses while Zak does not. Of the 20+ wrestlers at this particular tryout, Saraya is the only one to get invited to Florida (where NXT has its headquarters).
Saraya changes her in-ring name to Paige when she gets to the United States. As a result, she doesn’t immediately connect with her fellow female wrestlers, many of whom are former cheerleaders, models, or dancers. With their rock-hard bodies and flowing blond hair, they physically stand out from the scant backyard talent in Paige. But, of course, over time, she impresses them, and they impress her, and she becomes close with them. Sure, there were probably some real-life feuds, but this movie plays itself as a comedy and nothing more. While I’m sure the true story had more dramatic elements, we only breeze through them in this film.
The movie is fun. It’s enjoyable. It moves along quickly. It’s a good movie for families to watch together. What it suffers from is that it’s a story we’ve seen repeatedly. You can see the film’s ending a mile away, perhaps as early as the first 15 minutes. It also suffers from a lack of production. Fighting With My Family is WWE’s most successful movie to date. However, it still feels like a movie with B production talent. Its editing is fair at best. Its attempts to splice in really wrestling footage in and out of scenes could have been better. We get to see many wrestlers in the ring (mainly through views on television, but we never see the real Paige in the ring.
The acting is serviceable. The Knight family seems like it could have been right out of a Saturday Night Live skit. Vaughn is acceptable in his role. He’s far more subdued in this comedy than in any of his other comedies over the last decade-plus. We don’t get the ins and outs of the pro wrestling world. We get bits and teases. And while this wasn’t a documentary on the world of pro wrestling, it would have been good to get a little bit more than we got, if nothing else, to pique the interest of the non-fan or the casual fan. As a big-time WWE fan, I love new and exciting looks at the industry.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s (Gridiron Gang, Central Intelligence) couple of unique cameos were funny, but I would have liked to have seen more from him and other WWE talent, namely John Cena or Dave Bautista.
Fighting With My Family is a decent movie. However, you don’t need to go out of your way to see it.
Plot 7/10
Character Development 6/10
Character Chemistry 7/10
Acting 7/10
Screenplay 7/10
Directing 6/10
Cinematography 6/10
Sound 6/10
Hook and Reel 7/10
Universal Relevance 8/10
67%
C-
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