Fighting with my Family Wrestles With Itself

Fighting with my Family is a clever title for this biographical sports film about the youngest British girl to take the WWE championship title. Written and directed by Steven Merchant, it is based on the 2012 documentary; The Wrestlers: Fighting with my Family and starring the one to pay attention to, Florence Pugh as Saraya “Paige” Knight. With Nick Frost (Patrick) and Lena Heady (Julia) as the lovably wacky wrestling parents and Jack Lowden’s tender and mournful performance as Zak, Fighting with my Family is as bittersweet as one might expect a sports film about women’s wrestling might be.

After a brief introduction to the family when Saraya and Zak were just kids fighting over whether the TV channel could be changed so Saraya can watch Charmed or stay where it is so Zak can continue watching the WWE. Their parents encourage the two kids to settle their differnce by wrestling and so we meet the Knights. Soon Patrick “Rowdy Rick” and Julia (Sweet Saraya) are encouraging their daughter to wrestle her brother infront of a crowd. Young Saraya is reluctant to do so but relents and so is born a wrestling star.

One thing leads to the next and soon the siblings are given the opportunity to try out for WWE trainer Hutch Morgan (a restrained Vince Vaughn) in hopes of securing a spot on Smack Down. Zak is stoic in his failure to get signed and with a big heart supports his sister’s success in getting signed and the remainder of the movie focuses on Saraya’s (who changes her professional wrestling name to “Paige” after her favorite Charmed character) struggle to fit into the women’s wrestling world. It is a world where seemingly a premium is placed on glamour and cosmetics at the expense of athleticism.

Early on in her training under Hutch, “Paige” winds up smacking one of the other female wrestlers in retaliation for her sloppiness. Hutch admonishes Paige, but she can’t seem to understand what the problem is. While she recoils at the feeling that she is less than the others, she simultaneously looks down her nose at the others and must learn to become a part of a team. Pugh is terrific as Paige, embracing a fearsome primal athleticism while deftly maintaining an appealing femininity. It is always a disappointment to find Vince Vaughn in roles that don’t allow or his manic speech cadences, but he is just fine as the stern trainer Hutch.

The scenes with Frost and Heady are always fun, and watching Jack Lowden as Zak struggle with his own inner demons and fear of failure as it parallels Paige’s same fears is a good part of what makes Fighting with my Family such a gem. An uncut gem perhaps but a diamond in the rough to be sure. Merchant, who also plays Zak’s father-in-law, does a nice job of allowing the story shine by telling it simply and earnestly. There is also a welcome cameo from The Rock himself Dwayne Johnson.

This is a wrestling movie that at its heart is all about family. About the coming together, the pulling apart and the eventual coming back together that is so common among families. The reality that as we grow our families grow, and not all family is by blood. What’s not to love about a family wrestling movie for the whole family?