Movie Review: FIghting With My Family

 

Fighting with My Family *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Stephen Merchant.

Written by: Stephen Merchant.

Starring: Florence Pugh (Saraya Knight), Nick Frost (Ricky Knight), Lena Headey (Julia Knight), Jack Lowden (Zak Knight), Dwayne Johnson (Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson), Thomas Whilley (Young Zak), Tori Ellen Ross (Young Saraya), Olivia Bernstone (Ellie), Leah Harvey (Hannah), Mohammad Amiri (Ez), Jack Gouldbourne (Calum), Elroy Powell (Union Jack), Hannah Rae (Courtney), Julia Davis (Daphne), Stephen Merchant (Hugh), Vince Vaughn (Hutch), Ellie Gonsalves (Maddison), Aqueela Zoll (Kirsten), Kim Matula (Jeri-Lynn), James Burrows (Roy Knight).

 

Fighting with My Family shouldn’t be as good as a movie as it is. The film is clearly designed to be a promotional tool for WWE – wrapping up the wrestling giant in feel good packaging, telling an underdog sports story with a straight face, which is odd because the movie itself admits that wrestling is “fixed, not faked”. So while the film builds to the type of final match triumph that most sports movies of this ilk build to, it’s odd here since we in the audience know that the ending has been scripted before they step into the ring, although the movie itself doesn’t acknowledge this. The film really wants you to believe that this was a classic underdog story – one in which WWE Superstar Paige becomes the champion on pure grit and determination – and that clearly isn’t the case.

 

And yet, I could not help but be won over by Fighting with My Family despite knowing this. A large part of that is because of the performance by Florence Pugh in the lead role – who showed in Lady Macbeth that she is a great actress, and here shows that she is a movie star as well. She exudes charm and humor and you are immediately on her side from her first moments. The supporting cast is all fine as well – in clichéd roles to be sure, but fine just the same. Nick Frost is better here than he’s been in any not directed by Edgar Wright as Paige’s lovable lug of father, a former criminal, turned amateur wrestling, and while Lena Headey has less to do with her role as her mother, she’s excellent as well. Vince Vaughn is in fine form as the clichéd tough love coach pushing Paige after she is signed by the WWE, and has to work her way up the ladder through boot camp. Best of all is Jack Lowden as Paige’s brother Zak – who dreamed of being a pro-wrestler his entire and is devastated when his sister is picked, and he isn’t. The film wisely sticks with him as well – and shows his journey after Paige moves to Florida to pursue her dream.

 

The film was written and directed by Stephen Merchant, who co-created The Office and Extras with Ricky Gervais, and is now out on his own. He has a few scenes as an actor as well as the uptight father of Zak’s girlfriend, that makes good use of his unique gifts. The film has the same kind of humor that Merchant is known for, but with a lighter, less cynical, less awkward heavy touch. He keeps things going smoothly, and with good humor. He also knows when to get out. He makes good use of producer Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson who shows up twice in an extended cameo, poking fun of his own image (and Vin Diesel).

 

I’m not going to argue that the film is great, or that you will likely remember it long after you’ve seen it. I will say, if you are a sucker for an “inspirational” sports movie (and I am) then this one more than scratches that itch, and with a great performance by Pugh – making me want to see whatever she has next even more than I already did.

DVD Review: Cemetery Junction

Cemetery Junction ***
Directed by: Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant.
Written By: Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant.
Starring: Christian Cooke (Freddie Taylor), Tom Hughes (Bruce Pearson), Jack Doolan (Snork), Felicity Jones (Julie), Ricky Gervais (Mr. Taylor), Ralph Fiennes (Mr Kendrick), Matthew Goode (Mike Ramsay), Steve Speirs (Sgt. Wyn Davies), Anne Reid (Freddie's Gran), Julia Davis (Mrs Taylor), Emily Watson (Mrs Kendrick).

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant are responsible for two of the greatest TV shows of the last decade - The Office and Extras. In both shows, they showed they were masters at awkward comedy – the shows that make us laugh, and yet are at times almost painful to watch because of the humiliation up there on the screen. So it comes as quite as a surprise that their first feature film together is Cemetery Junction – a sweet, funny, affable coming of age movie set in the 1970s. There are a few moments when we can see the normal style of Gervais and Merchant peaking through in the film, but overall this is a departure for them. And while it is hardly the masterwork that the short seasons of The Office or Extras were, the film deserved a better fate than being unceremoniously dumped straight to DVD in North America.

The film takes place in 1973, in the small British town of Cemetery Junction, where almost everyone works in factory. It centers on three young men in their early 20s – Freddie (Christian Cooke) wants more out of life than working alongside his father (Gervais) as a grease monkey and has become a door to door insurance salesman working for Mr. Kendrick (Ralph Fiennes), a no nonsense man who came from the same neighborhood, but has made a success of himself – and looks down on everyone who hasn’t. Bruce (Tom Hughes) is a rebel without a cause (he even wears the same red jacket James Dean had), working in a factory, angry at his father who he sees as lazy, and getting into fights constantly for no real reason. The third is Snork (Jack Doolan), the lovable, pudgy loser of the group who seems to be drifting aimlessly and is happy that way.

Cemetery Junction is not really an original movie – we have seen countless filmmakers revisit their earlier years in these kind of nostalgic trips back in time. But the film is extremely well written by Gervais and Merchant – at times quite funny (Gervais and Anne Reid, who plays his mother bicker hilariously every time they are onscreen together), but overall quite poignant and charming as well. Sure, they are looking back at their past through rose colored glasses, but doesn’t everyone. They capture that real sense of impending adulthood of these three kids who don’t really want to grow up, but have to. And surrounding those three, they have a superior supporting cast – not just Fiennes, who is wonderful as a very boring, yet somewhat cruel man, but also Matthew Goode as the next Fiennes, Felicity Jones as the girl Freddie likes, despite the fact that she is Fiennes’ daughter, and Goode’s fiancée, and perhaps best of all Emily Watson as Fiennes quiet, long suffering wife who hits all the right notes.

Cemetery Junction is a step into a different terrain for Gervais and Merchant, and for the most part they pull it off. If you didn’t know it was them behind the camera, you probably would not guess it was them. I admire them for stretching, yet at the same time hope they now make a movie more in their regular vein. When you are better than pretty much everyone else in the world at something, why do something else?