Premiered at the Sundance Film Festival January 28,2019
A Stephen Merchant film
Plot(Spoiler Alert)
A family of four, Ricky, Julia, Zak and Saraya “ Paige” Knight, all have one thing in common and that is they love to wrestle. Zak and Paige try out so they can join the World Wrestling Entertainment, but only Paige gets in. Paige is now on a journey not just to pursue her dreams, but her family’s as well.
Blaine: Dwayne Johnson was shooting one of the “Fast & Furious” movies in England and one night he couldn’t sleep, so he checked to see what was on T.V. and he watched a documentary from 2012 on Saraya “Paige” Bevis. Dwayne was fascinated that Paige's whole family loved to wrestle. Dwayne wanted to talk to Paige about turning her story into a movie. Paige was going to be at Wrestlemania 2014 to compete and Dwayne texted her saying he would like to meet with her. Of course Paige didn’t know who was texting her because it was only his initials, but someone informed her it was Dwayne Johnson. Paige tried to keep things cool when she met Dwayne in person and he told his story about how he came across the documentary on her and that he wanted to make a movie out of it. Paige couldn’t believe it. She knew if she was going to be successful there would be a documentary made about her, but she never expected there would be a movie.
Dwayne had Stephen Merchant in mind when he thought Paige’s story should be made into a movie. Dwayne and Stephen had worked together as actors on the 2010 movie, “Tooth Fairy” and they kept in touch with each other after that. Stephen’s first love was movies and he spent his life studying them. Stephen grew up a film historian before deciding to make movies himself. Stephen even reviewed movies, including ones that aren’t easily heard of. Stephen was inspired by the movies he saw and they made him want to go into the business. Dwayne had sent Stephen the documentary and Stephen thought it was an inspiring and funny story. Here’s something Vince Vaugh said that I like, “It’s always fun to be apart of a project with someone in charge who cares about it and has a lot of ideas. It’s always the best way to work.”
It was scary for Florence Pugh (Lady Macbeth) to be playing a real life person because she had never done it before as an actor and that meant she had to get the performance 100% right. Florence never met Paige while “Fighting with My Family” was in development because Paige was suffering from a neck injury. They did however communicate through texting. Florence and Paige didn’t meet each other in person until “Fighting with My Family” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Paige gave Florence a lot of advice about wrestling through texting. Florence had to learn how to wrestle to prepare herself for “Fighting with My Family” and she loved it. Florence and Jack Lowden, who plays Zak, went down to NXT in Florida where all the pro wrestlers learn and train together. Florence was afraid when she first went into the wrestling ring, but the people who helped her did their best to help with the choreography. Learning how to wrestle was something new for Florence. Florence would watch the wrestlers wrestle and she admired them after seeing them train all day. Florence’s brother is a wrestling fan and he would watch it all the time growing up, so Florence was aware what wrestling was, but it didn’t interest her that much. But seeing how passionate these people are about wrestling really opened Florence’s eyes. Although she couldn’t understand why someone would get back into the ring after having some injuries. Actors don’t usually get to do their own stunts, but there are times where some feel they can do it. Paige felt it was weird just to watch someone else play her when she saw “Fighting with My Family”, but at the same time she was blown away by Florence’s performance. For the scene that happens at WWE, Stephen and his team only had one hour to shoot in the actual ring and WWE was nice enough to let them do it. Florence had to recreate Paige’s wrestling moves and it was crazy for her to do that, especially in front of thousands of people. Florence had never done a bigger scene than that.
Writer and director Stephen Merchant made a cameo in the film as the father of Zak Knight’s girlfriend. The girlfriend’s parents are coming over for dinner at the Knight house and the Knights have to act proper for them. But the Knight family say things that make them feel uncomfortable. It’s funny because Stephen acts like he feels uncomfortable with the jokes he wrote himself.
Stephen wanted to add emotion through Paige’s journey. What’s interesting is Paige didn’t show much interest in being a wrester at a young age, but there was nothing else in her life she liked more and wrestling runs through the family. Training to be in the WWE is not all what Paige was expecting it to be. It’s sort of the opposite. It’s still wrestling, but with more hard work. Back home Paige was someone, now she is surrounded by strangers and working twice as hard. Paige becomes homesick and feels like she is being bullied. Paige said that wrestling helps take her mind off of things and makes her feel like she is wanted somewhere, but not even wrestling can take her mind off of what she is feeling. Paige already had the support of her family, but still that didn’t help. What helps is to talk about what’s troubling you. When Paige finally confesses to her parents that she is quitting the WWE, they tell her they won’t force her to do anything, but also she has nothing to fear. Paige decides to give the WWE a second chance and works harder than she ever has in her life. Paige gets to know the people she is training with more and develops a friendship with them.
Vince Vaugh was not that familiar with Paige’s story when he got the call about the project. What was interesting for Vince was this was a story about a family with the same interest. It was very eye opening for Vince when he went down to Los Angeles to see young people wrestle because they could get injured easily, but they also had a lot of passion. Vince’s character, Hutch, is very challenging and a little hard, but at the same time he is someone who wants Paige to make it. He pushes people to do their best because he knows it takes hard work to get where you are going. “Fighting with My Family” is another one of those movies where you want the main character to succeed even though you know they are going to succeed because it’s based on a true story. There was times I said “Come on Paige you can do it”.
Being in the WWE is all Zak has ever dreamed for and when he gets rejected it’s like his soul has been torn out of him. It really gets to him because this is all he wanted out of life and he can’t have it. The depression is so terrible that he can not be happy that he and his girlfriend have a baby together. It takes a while for him to realize that he is wanted by his friends and family. Through his life, Zak has trained kids from his neighborhood how to wrestle and they look up to him. “Fighting with my Family” is not just about supporting Paige, but Zak as well and him realizing God put him on this Earth for a reason. Zak basically taught Paige how to wrestle and he’s always been there to look after her. None of the actors got to meet the people they were playing, except for Jack Lowden (Dunkirk). He got to meet the real Zak Knight and Zak would show up on set from time to time.
Lena Headey and Nick Frost play the parents Juilia and Ricky Knight. Stephen asked Nick if he was interested in being apart of the project, Nick said yes and that was that. Lena had seen the documentary years ago and fell in love with the Knight family. When the script for “Fighting with My Family” came Lena’s way she was all for it because she thought the Knight family was amazing and she wanted to make her performance so good that the real Julia Knight would be impressed. Lena did feel a lot of pressure playing a real life person. Lena watched the documentary again because there’s a lot of footage and interviews of the Knight family and that helped her find her performance. Lena thought Julia had an incredible personality. Lena had no interest in meeting Julia in person because she thought that would bring on too much pressure, same thing went for Nick Frost. He never met the real Ricky Knight. Nick didn’t want to do any impression of Ricky. The real Rickey wanted Ray Winston to play him. Paige told Ricky what an amazing job Nick did in playing him. Nick thought of Ricky as a working class man who will do anything to make his kids happy.
I like some of Nancy Richardson’s editing work. Like at the beginning of “Fighting with My Family” when it shows Zak and Paige when they were kids. They are wrestling in the ring, young Paige goes back and when she hits the ground she is now an eighteen year old. A lot of the best editing work is in a wrestling ring, except for when Paige is trying to lift a dumbbell, starts to scream and then cuts to Zak’s girlfriend screaming as she is giving birth.
Paige got to watch “Fighting with My Family” by herself in a screen room and it was weird for her to watch a movie about her story. Paige was crying her eyes out through the film because it was very emotional for her. Paige loved “Fighting with My Family” and thought everyone who worked on it did a terrific job. It also made Paige miss her family because she hardly sees them these days. Stephen Merchant had trouble watching the film at the Sundance Film Festival because he was nervous of what people would think of it, so he left and waited for the movie to end. The cast and Paige informed Stephen that the audience reaction was positive. Paige was nervous as well. She was in the audience hoping people would like her story and she was surprised with how much people loved it. Paige would google the movie every day to see how it was doing and the ratings kept growing. Paige has been speechless when giving a speech before she wrestles her opponent, but when she wins the match at Wrestlemania, she gives a speech that will forever be remembered. She lets the audience know that her family is to cheer for as much as her. People who are fans of Paige will now see what life was like for her and she says if you’re not a wrestling fan that’s ok because you don’t have to be one to see “Fighting with My Family”. Paige wants “Fighting with My Family” to become an inspiration for people when they see the movie.
My rating on “Fighting with My Family” is five out of five stars
