Fighting with My Family: how a modest British girl achieved the wrestling starlight

Inspired by a documentary, made by Channel 4, Fighting With My Family is a biographical movie, that focus on the whole way that Saraya-Jade Bevis had to do, till she reached her top wrestler career in the WWE industry. The movie follows her family, since both Saraya’s parents and her brother were wrestlers, showing her during the earlier times in UK, until the first diva championship in USA.

Saraya, mostly know in the show business as Paige, portrayed by Florence Pugh, is a girl, that like most siblings, fights often with her brother. However, since their parents are in the wrestling business, they encourage the youngsters to wrestle, thus creating their path to a career in the business.

Still, being from a poor family, with one brother in jail, all the television that she saw with her family was about the big sports industry. Further along, she is picked up for a trial in the great WWE industry, beginning a fairy tale story from rags-to-riches.

When she leaves the UK to Florida, Paige enters on the wrestling academy along with another potential superstars that are coached by the harsh instructor Hutch (Vince Vaughn). At some point all of the contenders of the famous glory have a tough time dealing with all the physical and psychological pressure that this type of sports crown put over them in the ring, but Saraya can’t handle the pain of being so far away from her family that she needs to come back to Norwich.

A rollercoaster of emotions that go along with the nonstop action story that is shot, not only in the protagonist perspective but also in the family panorama, showing the suffering that the family, addicted in wrestling, had to support to fulfil their dreams and the struggles of self-esteem of Paige. The general soundtrack of the movie claims all the spirit and environment of this entertainment business, playing often classic rock tunes, as per example Motorhead fitting well in the narrative appeal.

After all the difficulties, seeing that the family needs the wrestling glory, after some advice and becoming aware of the “weird” that she proclaims to be, Paige decides to go again to USA. At this time, she is, though, full of confidence, believing that she has everything necessary to be next woman superstar.

Although the biographical and human character of the movie, it is still classified as a comedy, with accolades going to the performances of Vince Vaughn. We should also praise the charismatic character of Paige’s fathers, ‘Rowdy’ Ricky Night, who is portrayed by Nick Frost, a legend in the UK comedies, known for The Cornetto Trilogy.

Released in 28 January 2018 in the Sundance Film Festival, ‘Fighting with My Family’ reaches a score of 7.6 in IMDB, while having an impressive 92 % in Rotten Tomatoes. On the other hand,  the worldwide box office has already made more than 32 billion dollars, especially in the UK where, how it was expected, it had a big impact in the revenues. We can expect further earnings though, because the movie wasn’t released yet in 10 countries such as Germany, France, Spain and Italy.

So, we can still see a gradual increase in the popularity of this biopic fiction movie in the next months since the American wrestling industry has a huge spread of fans across the world. In this movie, they can see their favourites wrestlers playing themselves, such as The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) or the Big Show.

In the credits scene we can see some real footage about the youngest Diva to win the championship in all WWE history, who won the shiny pink bell at twenty-one years old in her main roaster debut at Raw making in that way a powerful impact in the female’s role of wrestling.

A great dark horse tale, ‘Fighting with my Family’ this more than a movie about wrestling, focusing on the bonds between an affable family. With loads of plenty of endearing laughing moments, it claims Florence Pugh as a versatile actress, who continues her uprising career, after the success in Lady MacBeth, that gave her the British Independent Film Award for Best Actress at just 20 years of age.