So, back in the distant past of 2019, WWE Entertainment put together a movie called Fighting with my Family about the life of pro wrestler Paige, starring a then-obscure actress named Florence Pugh.
Fast forward to 2023, and I've become a big fan of Florence Pugh after her work at Marvel, particularly her cameo in the Disney+ series Hawkeye.
So I decided to check out Fighting with my Family and see if it was any good.
It was okay. Pugh is good as Paige, AKA Saraya Bevis, AKA Brittany Knight, despite not looking anything like the real wrestler, and the supporting cast are excellent as well. Well written, well acted, and pretty compelling most of the time.
The problem is they couldn't decide whether to go with the "wrestling is fake" or "wrestling is real" approach. Most of the movie is a behind the scenes view of the life of Paige and her family, who are all wrestlers and carny folk. But they wanted the sports movie ending where our heroine overcomes adversity and wins the big fight. This turns the third reel into a real trainwreck, where they have her going out and winning a wrestling match that is now apparently a real fight that she can win. Despite the rest of the movie establishing pretty clearly how wrestling actually works.
They basically lose the thread of their own storyline, which should have shown her finding her voice and stage persona during her training and apprenticeship in WWE's developmental program NXT, as it actually happened in real life.
In the end, it's not a bad way to spend an evening, but that ending is definitely flawed.