© 2018 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Imagine being a twenty-six-year-old wrestler and getting your very own biopic! Fighting With My Family brings the story of WWE superstar Paige to the big screen, and let me tell you, Florence Pugh, who plays her, absolutely shows us that this is her house!
The heart and soul of this film is the special relationships within the Knight family. Nick Frost plays wrestling promoter Ricky Knight with Lena Headey as his wife, wrestler Julia Knight (currently wrestling as Sweet Saraya). The family has had a rough go of it for a while, with a troubled past, and one kid in jail. Siblings Saraya Knight and Zak Knight (Jack Lowden) grow up as wrestling talents for their parents with the dreams of one day making it to the WWE.
All four of these characters were cast perfectly and there is a lot of heart here. They are far from your perfect family, but they do ultimately love and support each other—which is something you can genuinely feel throughout. Frost and Headey provide some delightful comic relief, whereas we ride the roller coaster of emotions portrayed by Pugh and Lowden. All of these performances deliver big time.
When Saraya gets the call to the WWE, leaving Zak and his dreams crushed in the wake, you can really feel his pain. Zak goes down a bad path getting into brawls, ignoring his sister, and even giving her some stiff shots in a pretty intense indie wrestling scene. You can really sense the betrayal Saraya feels, as she is all alone in America competing against models and dancers. NXT training is tough for her, and she just wants to be back with her family.
Being very familiar with Paige’s actual character and story over the years, I can honestly say Pugh’s performance is phenomenal. Her mannerisms and sarcasm perfectly mimic that of the actual WWE superstar. She’s a tough cookie, but also a wide-eyed dreamer lost and alone in this huge corporate conglomerate that is WWE. Naturally, she is able to overcome the obstacles put in front of her and make some friends along the way. One thing that I’ve always admired about Paige is that she has always kept it real, through the good times and the bad. You’ll find a few Easter eggs throughout the film, but I did notice snippets from her retirement speech during her promo in the movie.
Zak’s story arc is just as intriguing as he spirals out of control when his dreams are crushed. There’s a powerful scene where he calls WWE and essentially gets told that he’s good, but he just doesn’t have, “that something extra.” You can feel his heart break as he immediately blames his sister. I’m glad the film focused on his story as well, as we see him overcome a really dark depression. Zak finally comes to realize that he is making kids happy every day by training them in wrestling and keeping them out of trouble. He even teaches a blind kid to wrestle. One of my favorite scenes is when the blind boy delivers a flying cross body off the middle turnbuckle.
There’s some fun wrestler cameos and minor Easter eggs along the way too, but as exemplified by the trailers, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is the scene-stealer. He even takes a shot at Vin Diesel if you listen closely. You can see the importance of his minor role in the film as the story plays out.
However, my main issue with the film was everything surrounding the NXT and the WWE scenes. For a movie that was legit made by WWE Films and even shot during some WWE Live Events, there was a lot of fluff. As funny as he always is, I did not for one second believe that Vince Vaughn was a WWE NXT coach. Sure, when Vaughn’s Hutch presented the Tough Enough-esque challenges and eliminations, he was hilarious. But when he delivered lines like, “Do you want to be Diva’s Champion?” or, “Do you want to go to Wrestlemania?” I just didn’t buy it. He was one hundred percent Vince Vaughn throughout and even ended the film with the classic wink that we saw in The Break-Up (you knew it was coming). When he delivered a sob story about a wrestler that couldn’t make it, it was painfully obvious that he would reveal himself to be said wrestler.
The clincher for me was when he said, “This is THE NXT.” The operative word being the, “The.” The brand is infamously known as “NXT” with the tagline, “WE ARE NXT.”
Full Disclaimer: you’re getting the full pro wrestling fan’s point of view on this one. I’m a BIG advocate of NXT and a lot of the guys on the indie circuit who are trying to get there. Perhaps, I did take some of the liberties in the film a little too seriously, but some of the WWE wrestling milestones just didn’t feel entirely genuine.
For instance, when Paige debuted on RAW and won the Diva’s Championship on her first night, the crowd was actually behind her. Unlike in the film, she was the current NXT Women’s Champion and the crowd was chanting for her immediately. The movie played out a dramatic conquer your fears type moment where the crowd doesn’t initially respond to her. Obviously Paige delivers, but there was a lot of movie magic here, and much like Bohemian Rhapsody, you could just sense the inaccuracies. Even when AJ Lee made her entrance (Zelina Vega) she was an instant wrestling cliche, wearing a red robe to the ring. (In reality, AJ Lee had what I could best describe as a punk look with spider-themed attire.) I think a lot of people surrounding the film live and breathe wrestling, but I just can’t shake the feeling that some of the film makers don’t fully understand the circus that is professional wrestling.
That being said, I thought everything else felt very genuine. I conducted a little experiment, taking my wife, who is not a wrestling fan, along with me to see the film. She really enjoyed it and asked me a lot of questions about Paige after the movie. In my book, that speaks volumes.
Paige’s story is truly one that deserves to be told on the big screen, as she was also very instrumental in ushering in the Women’s Revolution taking over the world of wrestling today. For me, the icing on the cake was the real life family footage shown during the credits. Although flawed at times, Fighting with my Family is a great film for both wrestling and non wrestling fans alike.
Rating: 7.5/10
