★★★½
“The fall gal.”
This biopic of WWE Women’s Champion Paige, a.k.a. Saraya Knight from the English seaside town of Norwich, gets a lot of things right about professional wrestling. In particular, it strikes a good balance between the various aspects – positive and negative – of the sports entertainment business. Over the past twenty years, Chris and I have been intermittently involved with the independent end of the wrestling scene, like Knight and her family, and this captures the low-rent showbiz aspects beautifully. Yet it doesn’t shortchange the seductive – almost addictive – appeal of performance for a responsive crowd, or the potential escape from a drab life it offers someone like Saraya/Paige.
This was inspired by a documentary of the same name, which covered everything up to her successful tryout with WWE, but not much thereafter. To be honest, that’s probably the most entertaining section, being a thoroughly amusing series of escapades, populated by quirky and amusing characters, inhabiting the low-rent world at the bottom of the wrestling pyramid. Not the least of these are her parents, plaved by Frost and, surprisingly, Lena Headey. It’s… strange seeing Cersei Lannister putting people into a headlock. [Fun fact: I saw Saraya’s Mum wrestle at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon, back in the late nineties – even if they mis-spelled her name on the flyer!]
Once she goes over to the United States, it becomes a rather more predictable “fish out of water” story, with the dark, somewhat sullen Paige a radical departure from the other wannabe Divas, who all align more with the three T’s required by WWE at the time: teeth, tan and tits. The highlight in this phase is Vaughn’s performance as acerbic (and fictional) coach Hutch Morgan, who pulls no punches in his quest to winnow out the chaff for the benefit of his employer. For Paige, that transition is about becoming comfortable in her own skin, and repairing the relationship with her brother (Lowden), who also wanted – arguably, even more than Saraya – to reach the WWE, but was not offered a spot. To no-one’s surprise (even if you don’t know the story, this sticks to the well-worn path of the underdog sports film), she does so, and the film ends as she makes her debut, the night after Wrestlemania in New Orleans.
In terms of happy endings, that’s probably for the best. For injury forced Paige’s eventual retirement in April 2018, at the age of just 25, after barely two years of active competition and four in total. Not mentioned by the film, it’s a salutary reminder: a pro wrestler’s career is hard, and can be short. This is certainly a story which has been dramatized for cinematic purposes, probably inevitably. Yet the basic thread is intact – and, more importantly, the spirit of the people who inspired it is honoured. Having it directed by Merchant, previously best known as Ricky Gervais’s sidekick, proves a masterstroke. In his able hands, and helped by a winning performance from Pugh, the hackneyed material proves more than tolerable.
Dir: Stephen Merchant
Star: Florence Pugh, Jack Lowden, Vince Vaughn, Nick Frost