Credit: Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures © 2018 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved
Opening Weekend Gross: $138,780 (limited release); $7,813,113 (wide release)
Director: Stephen Merchant
Writer: Stephen Merchant
Production Companies: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Channel 4 Television Corporation, Film4, Misher Films, Seven Bucks Productions, The Ink Factory (in association with), WWE Studios
Actors/Actresses: Florence Pugh as Saraya Knight/Paige; Jack Lowden as Zac Knight; Lena Headey as Julia Knight; Nick Frost as Ricky Knight; Vince Vaughn as Hutch Morgan; Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as himself.
Runtime: 1 hour and 47 minutes
Genre: Biography, Drama, Comedy
Favorite quote: [Saraya and Zak bump into The Rock backstage]
Saraya: “We’ve been fans since you had hair.”
The Rock: “Oh, hey… It’s a choice. A damn good one too. See you, guys.”
The Rock: What are your names again?
Zak Knight, Raya Knight: My name is…
Saraya Knight: IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOUR NAMES ARE! You walk around here interrupting The Rock? You, like you haven’t seen the sun in 20 years? You, like you just stepped out of Oliver Twist? ‘Please, sir? May I have some more advice, sir?’ You want some advice? Here’s The Rock’s advice: Shut your mouth! What you want? What you want? How about what The Rock wants? The Rock wants you to go out there, take no prisoners, have no regrets, have no fear! Lay it all out on the line! Because if you don’t do that, The Rock is gonna find your friend Mary Poppins. He’s gonna take her umbrella. Yeah, he’s gonna shine it up real nice. He’s gonna turn that sonuvabitch sideways and stick it straight up your candy asses! There’s your advice, straight out of… the Jabroni-beatin’, pie-eatin’, trail blazin’, eyebrow raisin’, entertaining the globe never hotter, talkin’ to two rejects from Harry Potter!
Fighting With My Family is the biographical story of WWE superstar Paige (real name Saraya Jade Bevis). The movie focuses on Bevis/Paige’s fight with her family, literally and figuratively.
My favorite part/scene in Fighting With My Family was the scene where Paige is in NXT developmental and she is training with one of the other women in NXT. While practicing, the woman accidentally kicks and elbows Paige. Paige is furious, so furious she decides to give the other wrestler a “receipt.” The term “receipt” is wrestling jargon and is when a wrestler stiff shots his/her opponent after receiving a stiff shot. In the film, Paige gets chastised for this by NXT coach Hutch Morgan. At first, Paige doesn’t back down, she continues to argue with Coach Morgan. It’s not until Coach Morgan yells at Paige that she gets it.
I thought the film was entertaining, but could have been so much better. The ending of the film seemed very rushed. The movie skipped over Paige’s NXT championship reign and her match with Emma. Paige vs Emma at NXT Takeover should not have been excluded from the film because that match helped established the birth of the WWE women’s revolution. There were numerous anachronisms and factual errors in the film, some of which seem like easy fixes.
The anachronisms that stood out to me the most were the SmackDown and Raw set designs that did not exist at that time and the shot of the fan wearing an Apple watch. AJ Lee’s ring gear bothered me because it looked absolutely nothing like AJ’s actual ring gear. The film also failed to mention that when Paige challenged AJ for the Diva’s Championship, Paige was the current NXT Women’s Champion. It’s also disappointing to find out that Vince Vaughn’s character Hutch Morgan is a fictional character, but is the combination of several NXT coaches that trained Paige.
The movie lived up to its drama and comedy genre. The comedic scenes delivered, and I laughed each time. The scene where Zak calls Hutch Morgan while driving is heartbreaking. Actor Jack Lowden did a great job expressing sadness, anger, and despair. Vince Vaughn’s performance was also solid.
I would recommend this film to wrestling fans, particularly Paige fans and people who
Overall rating:
3 out of 5 stars
