Fighting With My Family (2019) Review

Title: Fighting With My Family 
Year: 2019
Director: Stephen Merchant
Country: UK
Language: English

I remember, because it wasn't that long ago, watching Saraya-Jade Bevis (aka Paige) debut on the WWE main roster and defeated AJ Lee for the then called "Divas Championship" on a post-Wrestlemania 30 Monday Night Raw. It was an exciting and monumental moment because up until then the "diva's division" (what they called the female wrestlers in WWE) was dominated by models and women who couldn't really perform that well. Paige had been a professional wrestler for 6 years before that point & her win helped pave the way for women to be taken seriously in WWE. 

Fighting With My Family is, to a smaller extent, about Paige's family struggling to get by as wrestlers in the UK while maintaining a strong family unit. To a larger extent it's about Paige (Florence Pugh) herself slowly rising to the top of the female wrestling world. 

Florence Pugh does a good job at creating this underdog character that has to overcome both physical and mental shortcomings (such as low self esteem, fear of rejection) in order to reach her true potential. Her acting provides the foundation of drama throughout the picture. Nick Frost, who plays Paige's dad, gives a much needed comedic undertone to the film that prevents Fighting With My Family from being weighed down by heavy emotion. I loved the Who's Coming to Dinner-like scene wherin upper middle class British folk have dinner with these barbarian-like wrestlers. 

The script is, well, a bit cliche. Many scenes are formulaic and could be in any other underdog story, but as mentioned the actors give an average script some nice flow and longevity. Though it is fairly unfortunate that much of the later scenes are manufactured, taking the "based on a true story" moniker very loosely. Paige was an under-dog, but she was still NXT women's champion by the time she fought AJ Lee, but I digress. 

Paige's story is fairly unique, her family did rise from poverty, and it is a story worth telling on the big screen. I feel like the film-makers' got as much out of the story as anybody else could have. It succeeded in holding my attention, but I don't think it rose above a popcorn flick. Certainly worth at least one viewing.