Based on the true story of Paige a former World Wrestling Entertainment superstar focusing on her rise from Norwich, England. Coming from a wrestling family and having the WWE dream from the time she had her first official wrestling match at 13 years old.
I need (and want) to start this review off by stating how huge of a fan of WWE I was back in the late 90s and early 00s. When I was 14/15 I even started training in wrestling and it was fantastic! Although now it is probably something that I don't really mention or think about. But when seeing the build up for this film and the trailer, I just knew it was going to bring back some fantastic memories. It certainly managed to do that and at one point being a WWE wrestler really was a big dream of mine.
Ok, now I have established my wrestling loving background I can now get into the review and say I loved every single second of the film. Saraya Knight's story really is a good one, maybe even great one and worthy of a film to highlight everything she managed to achieve. Growing up in a wrestling family it seemed to be nailed on that she would eventually get the bug and want to be involved. Zak her brother had helped her train and he was determined to make it to the WWE as well.
Obviously in terms of time restraints when doing a film you have to cut the story down and it makes part of her story seem like it was easy and straight forward. It was far from that and she had been wrestling around Europe and not just in Norwich before getting the chance to try out for the WWE. But I can fully understand why for the screen time it was condensed in this way, that is by no means a compliant as the flow of the film is fast paced and a joy to watch.
Ultimately a story about never giving up on your dream, but also knowing exactly how to achieve it. That means a lot of hard work, very hard work! Nothing that you want that much is going to come easy, which also means in terms of training montages we get a couple of good moments in this film. Also about trying to fit in whilst still being true to yourself, I thought the scenes with the other women trying out were interesting. You might not always get on or even like others but when that then effects work you must make a huge effort.
Performance wise I was really looking forward to seeing Florence Pugh in the leading role and she really does a fantastic job in this film, she really does have such a big career ahead of her. Throw in Dwayne Johnson showing the difference between himself and the character of The Rock (great moments for the wrestling fans with that). Vince Vaughn was engaging as the trainer and had some very good lines. Jack Lowden impressed me a lot as the supportive and then jealous brother, I felt his character development was very good.
I really do hope that this film does very well at the box office as it really is such an inspiring tale showing that it you work very hard, have a supportive family and want something enough you will push yourself to make it happen. I am sure it will go down very well with current wrestling fans and older fans like myself to recapture the magic. If you aren't a big fan of wrestling you might just find it more interesting after watching this very impressive film!