The star of the film, Florence Pugh, is sympathetic when the scene calls for it, and in an instant, she can turn on the attitude wrestlers must have in order to “get over.” She resembles her real-life counterpart, moves like her in some scenes, and she cinematically captures what’s special about Paige in the first place. As much as I loved the rest of the cast, Vince Vaughn outshines them. Vaughn plays Hutch, the no-nonsense NXT trainer, and scout for WWE. Vaughn has the funniest lines, and this is definitely his best performance in a long time. Producer Dwayne Johnson pops up in a few scenes oozing his usual presence and charisma, so that was fun to watch.
There are parts of the movie that come off corny. It’s a feel-good movie with a triumphant ending, but one scene, in particular, bothered me. Both the real-life Paige and actress Florence Pugh are attractive and strong women. There’s a scene where Paige is forced to tape her first television promo (for the uninitiated, a promo is where a wrestler hypes themselves up to the crowd, it can also be an introduction to the character as well). The crowd makes disparaging remarks about her looks and Paige freezes dead in her tracks, effectively failing the task. This scene was ridiculous and if they wanted it to be more effective, they should have alluded to these insecurities all just being in her head. She already had a story thread about not fitting in with her fellow trainees because they are blonde, beautiful dancers and cheerleaders with no wrestling background, this attempt at calling out her looks just didn’t work for me.
I know Saraya felt like an outcast in real life, but I feel like that also had more to do with her family’s involvement in professional wrestling and less to do with her being a hideous goth girl. As a wrestling fan there were a lot of changes made, and quite honestly I was expecting that to be the case. I wasn’t asking for 100% accuracy, but it would have been nice to feature more of her fellow wrestlers instead of giving us three fairly generic characters. There are nice nods and cameos by other WWE Superstars that I don’t want to give away, but I wanted more. It didn’t feel authentic enough, but admittedly this might only bother me because I am a fan.
“…Vaughn has the funniest lines, and this is definitely his best performance in a long time…”
One last fan gripe though, the film wraps up in a nice, albeit inaccurate way. The real event definitely played out differently and this was no doubt changed to up the drama and really nail home the idea that Saraya was nervous and tended to freeze when talking on the mic, but after the climatic ending scene we’re given a “Where are they now?” epilogue that mentions a few things and adds in one hilarious jab at The Rock’s post-wrestling career, but skips over the sad part about Paige having to retire from wrestling due to an injury and also the part where she came back as a kick-a*s non-competing on-camera talent. I know this film was shot and probably finished before she suffered her career-ending injuries, but since you already have a text-based epilogue, it’d probably be worth mentioning. It’s a small gripe, and again it might just be because I’m a picky fan, but it just seemed like important wrap-up information to skip entirely.
