PARK CITY – A movie centered on the rags to riches story of a female WWE champion might not sound like a fit for the Sundance Film Festival, but push your prejudices aside and look closer. Yes, “Fighting With My Family” is produced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and we admit having the WWE Studios banner on it could make it look like a simple marketing ploy. In truth, it’s a feel-good flick from acclaimed writer and comedian Stephen Merchant (in his solo feature directing debut) that is hard to resist even if you haven’t watched more than a minute of televised wrestling in your life. That’s because Merchant isn’t making a movie about the joys of wrestling, he’s telling a story about the power and pressure of one family’s dream.
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Based on the true story of Saraya “Paige” Bevis (Florence Pugh, incredible) and inspired by the 2012 documentary “The Wrestlers: Fighting with My Family,” the film starts off in the local pro wrestling circuit of Norwich, England where the Bevis family have been performing for decades. Her father Patrick aka “Rowdy Ricky Knight” (Nick Frost, perfect casting) and mother Julia aka “Sweet Sayara” (Lena Headey, killing it at comedy) have raised their children to follow in their footsteps. No one wants to climb that mountain more than Zak aka “Zodiac” (Jack Lowden, ready to breakout), who has dreamed of being a WWE wrestler since he was a kid. The family’s entire lives are centered around wrestling as they perform in small venues under Patrick’s World Association of Wrestling banner and teach the art form in classes out of their gym. It’s immediately clear that Zak is a fantastic teacher and the kids love him (one of the joys of the film is watching a blind student learn how to wrestle), but his end goal is a shot at the big time. And finally, like a dream, the call he’s been waiting for comes through.
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After years of trying, Paige and Zak are invited to audition for the WWE in London with the chance to train in its minor league franchise NXT on the line. Arriving at the arena before a major WWE match they conveniently bump into Johnson who gives them some sage advice. And, no, his appearance isn’t a cameo for a cameo’s sake as we’ll later learn Johnson is actually a part of the real Paige’s story. Both siblings audition for the company’s “star maker” Hutch Morgan (Vince Vaughn, funny again) along with other potential recruits. Much to everyone’s surprise and Zak’s horror, only Paige makes the cut.
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The movie then proceeds to chronicle Paige’s training in Florida where she discovers the program is closer to a boot camp and much harder than she ever expected. Not only is she lonely, but she finds it impossible to connect with the other female recruits who are former models, cheerleaders and dancers with no formal wrestling training. Back in Norwich, Zak is having difficulty adjusting to the end of his lifelong and refuses to take his sister’s calls. The familial conflict comes to a head when Paige returns for the Christmas holidays and reveals to her brother she doesn’t intend to return to the program.
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Overall, “Fighting” works thanks to Merchant’s witty screenplay, Pugh’s transformative performance, Vaughn’s inspired off the cuff one-liners (likely improvised) and a cast that clearly respects the Bevis family story. Merchant also understands that the most important part of Paige’s journey is whether she can step out of her family’s shadow and have success not for them, but for herself. And that’s a universal story anyone can get teary-eyed over if the right buttons are pushed.
Unfortunately, there are a few things that hold the picture back from being a total smash. There’s something off regarding Paige’s scenes in Florida. They feel slightly inauthentic and end up dragging the film down a bit. Maybe it’s a few too many training montages? Maybe the facility looks too corporate to be real? Whatever it is, these seem a little too out of place for the rest of the picture. Merchant also makes the unexpected decision to shoot a climactic scene just as it would appear with WWE television cameras and graphics. On the one hand, you can understand this how the Bevis family always imagined they would hit the big time, but at this particular moment it almost (emphasis on “almost”) takes you out of the picture. Merchant might have been better off at least mixing in the general “film” look with the “broadcast” image to at least make it less jarring.
At the center of it all, however, is Pugh and you simply cannot praise her enough. It’s hard to imagine that the same actress who broke through in 2016’s period drama “Lady Macbeth” is throwing herself around a wrestling ring with the minimal use of stunt stand-ins. And if she can’t make you care about a wrestler fighting for her dream we can’t imagine who would. [B]
Check out all our coverage from the 2019 Sundance Film Festival here.
