C+Directed by Stephen Merchant Starring Florence Pugh, Jack Lowdon, and Vince Vaughn Review by Jon Kissel |  |
WWE Studios making a biopic about one of its wrestlers immediately stinks of corporate propaganda, and Fighting With My Family doesn’t allay those concerns. Famous past and present wrestlers like The Rock and Big Show make cameo appearances, and there’s little sense of the seamier side of the business as exposed in Beyond the Mat. The film also seems to misunderstand the matches themselves, pretending that they can be won with grit and determination instead of predetermined outcomes based on who management is promoting this week. However, with a strong cast and some subversive moments, Fighting With My Family is nonetheless an entertaining sports flick. The true story of pro wrestler Paige’s emergence from a hardscrabble English life to the lights of the WWE is an amusing charmer that’s more perceptive and warm-hearted than it needed to be.
Florence Pugh stars as Paige, though that’s just Soraya Knight’s stage name. Coming from a clan of amateur wrestlers led by burly father Patrick (Nick Frost) and salty mother Julia (Lena Headey), the Knights have always scraped by with local shows in their hometown of Norwich. As Soraya and older brother Zak (Jack Lowden) come of age, so does the possibility of making it to the big time. During WWE tryouts, however, Soraya is accepted while Zak is not. Sent to train in America, Soraya battles homesickness and snobbishness towards her less-experienced peers, and Zak struggles with what the rest of his life is going to look like now that he must set aside his dreams.
As written and directed by Stephen Merchant, Fighting With My Family is a great fit for his first feature. Creating awkward public failures and social faux pas’ are skills he’s spent the 21st century mastering, and Soraya’s time in the US is ripe with opportunity for these as she clashes with her competitors and her coach, played by Vince Vaughn. Back home, Zak’s story seems like it could be the backstory of a character from the Office, like he had big ambitions and took a job in a paper company to pay the bills and now fifteen years have gone by. Despite the joviality of the Knight parents, there’s a sadness hanging over the Norwich scenes, like the big barrel laughs are holding back depression.
Whatever Merchant’s considerable strengths, the heavy hand of the WWE is hard to ignore. Vaughn has a melancholy monologue speaking vaguely about failed wrestlers, and it’s shocking that the WWE allowed it to be included. The spoken details of steroid use and painkillers for little reward, however, don’t enter into any onscreen action, as if the viewer is only supposed to imagine the downside and experience the upside. The film also does a poor job of explaining why Soraya is a good fit for the WWE, as she never cracks her character or develops a capable stage patter. The obvious heel turn, where she’s a stuck-up Englishwoman, isn’t entertained, perhaps out of a reluctance to skewer the WWE fan base’s xenophobia or maybe just an unwillingness to make one of their stars a bad guy. There’s a moment late in the film where the film flirts with maturity, as Soraya could potentially be waking up from a dream that she was fed since infancy instead of developed on her own, but that’s not this movie. The WWE isn’t going to back a film about a person turning their back on wrestling.
Even with those considerable caveats, Merchant and company know what they’re doing. Fighting With My Family is stuffed with performances and grace notes, all of which make it easy to go along for the sponsored ride. Headey, now finished with Game of Thrones, needs to take more comedic jobs based on her work here. Pugh is a capable lead, willing to appear unlikable in moments while always being a credible athlete. Lowden plays a spectrum of shades, throwing himself into the role of youth wrestling coach in the film’s warmest moments and also briefly becoming its scariest monster. As for Soraya’s competitors, it would’ve been very easy for Merchant to cast them as mere pretty faces in Soraya’s way, but the film reserves a surprising amount of humanity for them. Fighting With My Family might be branded content, but it’s more in the vein of the LEGO Movie than the Playmobil Movie. C+
As written and directed by Stephen Merchant, Fighting With My Family is a great fit for his first feature. Creating awkward public failures and social faux pas’ are skills he’s spent the 21st century mastering, and Soraya’s time in the US is ripe with opportunity for these as she clashes with her competitors and her coach, played by Vince Vaughn. Back home, Zak’s story seems like it could be the backstory of a character from the Office, like he had big ambitions and took a job in a paper company to pay the bills and now fifteen years have gone by. Despite the joviality of the Knight parents, there’s a sadness hanging over the Norwich scenes, like the big barrel laughs are holding back depression.
Whatever Merchant’s considerable strengths, the heavy hand of the WWE is hard to ignore. Vaughn has a melancholy monologue speaking vaguely about failed wrestlers, and it’s shocking that the WWE allowed it to be included. The spoken details of steroid use and painkillers for little reward, however, don’t enter into any onscreen action, as if the viewer is only supposed to imagine the downside and experience the upside. The film also does a poor job of explaining why Soraya is a good fit for the WWE, as she never cracks her character or develops a capable stage patter. The obvious heel turn, where she’s a stuck-up Englishwoman, isn’t entertained, perhaps out of a reluctance to skewer the WWE fan base’s xenophobia or maybe just an unwillingness to make one of their stars a bad guy. There’s a moment late in the film where the film flirts with maturity, as Soraya could potentially be waking up from a dream that she was fed since infancy instead of developed on her own, but that’s not this movie. The WWE isn’t going to back a film about a person turning their back on wrestling.
Even with those considerable caveats, Merchant and company know what they’re doing. Fighting With My Family is stuffed with performances and grace notes, all of which make it easy to go along for the sponsored ride. Headey, now finished with Game of Thrones, needs to take more comedic jobs based on her work here. Pugh is a capable lead, willing to appear unlikable in moments while always being a credible athlete. Lowden plays a spectrum of shades, throwing himself into the role of youth wrestling coach in the film’s warmest moments and also briefly becoming its scariest monster. As for Soraya’s competitors, it would’ve been very easy for Merchant to cast them as mere pretty faces in Soraya’s way, but the film reserves a surprising amount of humanity for them. Fighting With My Family might be branded content, but it’s more in the vein of the LEGO Movie than the Playmobil Movie. C+
RSS Feed