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Hardly anyone would have thought in the early 2000s that WWE superstar Dwayne Johnson would soon become one of Hollywood’s biggest stars – his appearances in The Scorpion King and The Mummy Returns certainly didn’t make it suspicious. Today, the star’s name is practically synonymous with incredible action spectacles and opulent box office hits. From The Fast and the Furious to Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Black Adam.
Relatively unknown and more personal is Johnson’s best film: Fighting for the Family. Dwayne not only produced the film himself, through his production company Seven Bucks Productions, but also appeared in front of the camera for the film adaptation of the true story of the rise of wrestling superstar Paige (Florence Pugh). His role: Himself, who gives the protagonist one or two valuable advice on her journey. It is currently available on demand on Apple TV.
In a way, Dwayne Johnson returns to his wrestling roots with Fighting with My Family, in the original. The biopic is, therefore, a true passion project. And it’s exactly that – heart – that is probably the film’s most important component, which means it doesn’t need a big action spectacle or Dwayne Johnson in the lead role.
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Fighting for the Family: Weird drama meets light-hearted comedy
With his film, director Stephen Merchant (The Office and The Office UK) follows in the footsteps of great films of the genre, such as Sylvester Stallone’s classic, Rocky. Saraya Jade Bevis, who eventually became world famous under her ring name Paige, also enters the ring as a tough outsider. She wants to prove not just to the world, but also to her wrestling family – but most of all to herself – that she has what it takes to make the jump from remote Norwich in the east of England to WWE. Fighting for the Family shows the path to get there, paved with rows of obstacles.
From the first scene it is clear that what awaits us here is not a melancholy drama, but great fun. A story about a family of misfits who are both so incredibly wrong and kind, you can’t help but take them seriously. When the father (Nick Frost, star of Everybody’s Almost Dead) angrily interrupts his sons while they’re fighting just to explain to them how a real chokehold works, and the mother (Game Of Thrones star Lena Headey) joins in to making the wrestling hype attract your daughter because it feels like cocaine, crack and heroin all rolled into one – even though she’s never used drugs, at least not together – it suddenly becomes clear to you: there’s really nothing wrong with this family. And yet, somehow, it does.
After a time jump, we finally see that both sons have become promising fighters and are now about to embark on a professional career. But while Zak’s (Dunkirk’s Jack Lowden) childhood dream quickly ends, Saraya (Pugh) gets the chance of a lifetime.
A difficult situation that, despite all the comedy, creates a real family drama that irritates you. Because the setting, the characters and their emotional world are so moment-to-moment understandable that you could easily be part of this eccentric group yourself. Parents who project their dreams onto their children, brothers who take that dream from you and the courage to take your own life into your own hands – all of this makes Fighting for the Family a rollercoaster of emotions.
The fact that the film still makes you feel like you’ve been hugged for 100 minutes at the end is because the roller coaster goes up at least as often as it goes down. It’s not just the chaotic family of the same name that always brings a laugh – for example, with their supposedly romantic story of meeting each other, marked by prison and addiction, which they tell their son’s conservative in-laws on their first date – but also Vince Vaughn (Wedding Crashers). As Saraya’s instructor, he acts like her version of Sergeant Hartman from Born to Kill and clearly has fun talking to his “recruits” with comments that are as nasty as they are funny.
But the star of the film is, without a doubt, Florence Pugh. The 28-year-old is one of the biggest and, above all, most versatile rising stars of the moment, having shone in recent years in films as diverse as the cult horror, Midsommar, the historical drama, Little Women and the superhero production, Black Widow. And in Fighting for the Family she delivers the type of performance that makes her so versatile: on the one hand, she is tough, a daredevil who tolerates nothing from anyone. On the other, the vulnerable young woman who has to remove the embers from the fire for her family, before she even knows who she really is. And of course, there’s Pugh’s extremely strong physical performance, which may have been one of the reasons she ended up on Marvel’s wish list.
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Fighting for the Family is a fun and light-hearted coming-of-age drama with an extra dose of heart. It’s not a punch in the gut, nor is it a dull, mind-numbing comedy – but an exhilarating mix of big emotions and just as much fun.
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