Fighting with My Family

"The real life story of American professional wrestling’s unlikely British champion makes for a pleasing but hardly challenging Rocky-off-the-top-rope biopic. It’s too safe."

"A story ripe for a film adaptation and marks a good debut for Merchant."

""Fighting With My Family" may not be an Oscar contender but it has enough wit, heart, energy and good cheer to make it a fun watch even for non-wrestling fans."

"The boastful, performative nature of WWE, spiked with mini dramas and constant role-playing, becomes the lingua franca of an atypical household in Fighting with My Family, the sweetest of comedies despite a sizable number of body slams."

"It's often broadly funny but never mean or patronising; it takes the Knights, their eccentricities and quixotic aspirations seriously, but not enough to squelch the fun."

"Despite a great real-life background story, and despite comedy master Stephen Merchant being at the helm as writer-director, this movie never really comes off."

"Fighting With My Family is a plucky, funny and unexpectedly moving wee film. I liked it a great deal."

"What's surprising is how well all of this suplex-to-nuts biopic works...[but] see it for Florence Pugh's fireplug turn."

"Fighting with My Family is simply an entertaining, lightweight affair of humorously choreographed muscle."

"Within the context of a sport that thrives on artifice, writer-director Stephen Merchant spins a story whose emotions feel entirely genuine."

"A couple of scenes with The Rock don't energise a run-of-the-mill sports story."

"If you want a good laugh, you'll find it here. If you want some Rocky-style physical exertion, you'll get your fill. Even if you're not all that interested in pro wrestling, the serious talent has a solid chance of winning you over anyway."