Starring: Florence Pugh, Lena Headley, Nick Frost, Jack Lowden, Dwayne Johnson, Vince Vaughn
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Runtime: 109 mins. Reviewed in Mar 2019
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This unusually titled British film is a biographical sports-comedy drama, based on the 2012 documentary, “The Wrestlers: Fighting with My Family”, which was directed by Max Fisher. The film is about the career of a professional wrestler named Paige, who comes from a wrestling family in Norwich, England.
Saraya (Florence Pugh) and Zak (Jack Lowden) are the children of Patrick (Nick Frost) and Julia (Lena Headey) Bevis, and they are a wrestling family obsessed with the sport of wrestling. Patrick and Julia run a wrestling school in a small English town, and expect that both their children will make their reputations in the ring. The family performs live around the country, and Saraya and Zak compete with each other in the ring, where they play their affection and rivalry out.
The film focuses on Saraya becoming a champion, amidst family tensions and personal doubts. They include Saraya’s humiliating distress in the wrestling ring, her conflict with her brother, and her failures in the ring before becoming the youngest wrestler champion on the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) circuit. Paige is Saraya’s competition name, and the film is the story of how she rose to the top of the wrestling profession. At age 21, she became the youngest female champion in the history of W.W.E.
The film self-consciously mixes slapstick with witty English humour, and combines the major themes of family togetherness, friendship, and sporting dedication. Paige’s story and how she rose to the top by facing her challenges makes for a biographical film, which is inspiring, funny, and heart-warming.
You don’t have to be a fan of the sport of wrestling to appreciate this film. It has lots of wrestling scenes, but avoids celebrating the violence of the sport and focuses dramatically on the family dynamics and the fortunes of the Bevis family. For instance, Zak is jealous of his sister, but learns to come to grips with his feelings. He gets the thumbs down from a tough trainer (Vince Vaughn), while his sister ends up being invited to compete nationally. Zak is not at all happy, but learns to cope with his feelings for his family’s sake, and finally reconciles with his sister, which stirs Paige on.
In this movie, Stephen Merchant, the director of the film, plunges headlong into the domestic fray of a highly ambitious family, which lives and breathes the sport of wrestling, and has wrestling in its blood. At one level, Paige is realising the tradition begun by her parents, who are fanatical about the sport, but at another level, Paige achieves the independence important to her by excelling in the way she knows best.
There are elements of this movie that remind one of the British films of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, which authentically deliver scenes of laughter and hurt in an entertaining and realistic way. It by no means rises to the heights of their films, but it very entertainingly combines compassion and sorrow in a heartfelt style that keeps the character of those on the screen always in strong focus. This allows the film to reach out in its appeal well beyond the usual fan base of the sport of wrestling. The performance of Florence Pugh as Paige is particularly engaging, and Dwayne Johnson – the idol of the family, as a real-life WWE superstar – plays himself in the movie.
This is a British underdog comedy-drama, that is much less about the sport of wrestling than about an unusual family that is devoted to it. The movie quietly and enjoyably charms. There are some crude elements to the dialogue of the film, but they are natural to the contexts that are being dramatised. The real thrust of this movie is about perseverance, the power of forgiveness, and the need to sustain positive family bonding. On all three of these, the movie is a winner.
Peter W. Sheehan is Associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting
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