Fighting with My Family (2019)

When I first heard of Fighting with My Family earlier this year I thought, "great, another dumb movie with The Rock" and I avoided it. Then about a week ago I read a blogger saying it was fun and entertaining, even if wrestling is not your cup of tea, and I decided to give it a shot.

The film tells the true story of professional wrestler Paige/Saraya Knight (Florence Pugh). Born in a family of wrestlers, she joined the family business at 13, even though she didn't love it as much as her family, especially her brother, Zak (Jack Lowden). Five years later, both her bother and she find themselves competing for the same WWE and Saraya is the only one picked among all the participants. While she is pushed to new limits by coach Hutch (Vince Vaughn), Zak must move past his dreams of making the WWE.

The fact that it's based on a true story doesn't prevent Fighting with My Family from being a predictable "underdog overcoming the odds" tale that deals with themes of family, friendship and dedication. In other words, nothing we haven't seen before. Because of its predictability, I found the story to be unevenly engaging and occasionally boring. It does, however, do a good job at showing the hard work that goes into becoming a professional wrestler and it certainly made me appreciate this sport a bit more. 

The same can be said about the characters as they too aren't anything we haven't seen before. Still, director and writer Stephen Merchant did a pretty good job at writing human and relatable characters and developing them — although some of the relationships between the characters develop too rapidly and feel rushed because of this, like something was missing. 

Lionsgate UK, Mirror Releasing, Universal Pictures

The cast does a very good job. Florence Pugh gives an intense and believable performance as Paige, and conveys Paige's inner struggles very well. It's Jack Lowden, however, who steals the show — he has certainly the most to do as Zak must deal with disappointment, anger and envy, and he conveys all that effortlessly. As for the rest of the cast, Lena Headey and Nick Frost do a good job as the negligent but protective parents, and Vince Vaughn is not terrible in the more serious but predictable role of the tough coach. 

Fighting with My Family is also quite humorous with its mixture of British humour, slapstick and dad jokes. With all that being said, the film didn't fully work for me as I never really felt the drama, the story wasn't always engaging and entertaining, and the comedy fell flat at times. Also, The Rock, who plays himself, is barely in the film. I'm not sure that's a negative thing, though. 

 

Mary Queen of Scots (2018)

Historical movies aren't really my thing —despite the fact that I loved my teacher, history was one of my least favourite subjects in high school— but I checked out Mary Queen of Scots anyway because one does not simply pass a movie starring Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie. And of course eye-candy in the form of Jack Lowden is always welcome. 

The film tells the story of Catholic Mary Stuart (Saoirse Ronan). Queen of France at 16 and widowed at 18, she returns to Scotland to reclaim her rightful throne. But Scotland and England are both ruled by her cousin Elizabeth (Margot Robbie), the Protestant Queen of England, and her claim to the English throne puts her on a collision course with Queen Elizabeth I.

A more or less compelling political battle of wits is what I was expecting, but what I got instead was a beyond tedious and "not so easy to follow because of all the double-crossing" plot filled with historical inaccuracies —this part of history was unknown to me but there were things so far fetched I checked for facts on Wikipedia—, Mary refusing to do what people advised her and Elizabeth crying. There are political intrigue and backstabbing, lots of both, but the story is not interesting, it's not engaging and I just didn't care because of the dull, inconsistent storytelling.

The characters are also pretty bland and uninteresting as they are poorly characterized, poorly developed and, for the exception of Mary, they don't even have clear motivations. They are just cartoonish characters that deserve absolutely no sympathy, especially Elizabeth who is presented as a weak, constantly whining woman. Not to mention the openly gay friend of Mary, or her gay husband.

At least there's the cast, part of it, that makes Mary Queen of Scots more bearable. Both Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie do a good job in the roles as they manage to make their characters slightly more interesting, and both doing a great job at hiding their accents, Irish the first, Australian the latter —I'm not sure though why Mary has a Scottish accent since she grew up in France. The rest though is quite a mess. It's not entirely the actors' fault as the script is quite poor but most of them give wooden performances or over-act like David Tennant and when they are actually decent, they are criminally underused like Guy Pearce.

Focus Features, Universal Pictures

The strong performances from Ronan and Robbie aren't the only good things about Mary Queen of Scots. The cinematography is quite breathtaking with plenty of beautiful scenery and locations rich in colour; the costumes are gorgeous; the makeup is very good.

Unfortunately, the writing is terrible, the direction is dull, and the casting of people of colour to play 16th century Great Britain aristocrats just doesn't feel right. If they wanted to make a politically correct movie, they should have gone with fictional characters. But I guess it fits the film very well if you consider all the inaccuracies.