|
|
QUEEN OF THE RING
Director: Ash Avildsen Cast: Emily Bett Rickards, Josh Lucas, Tyler Posey, Walton Goggins, Francesca Eastwood, Marie Avgeropoulos, Kailey Farmer, Cara Buono, Gavin Casalegno, Adam Demos, Deborah Ann Woll, Kelli Berglund, Damaris Lewis MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 2:20 Release Date: 3/7/25 |
|
Review by Mark Dujsik | March 6, 2025 Dramatizing the early period of women's wrestling, co-writer/director Ash Avildsen's Queen of the Ring isn't much of a history lesson. Like the sport itself, the filmmaker is more concerned about what an audience wants at a baser level. Here, it's to see the rise of the women pioneers of professional wrestling, primarily Mildred Burke, who would be the first to win a championship belt in the first wrestling league for women and hold that title for two decades. Her story in the ring, though, is almost secondary to everything she did and all of the challenges she faced outside of it. That's the idea of Avildsen and Alston's screenplay, at least, as Burke's life—from her days as a server at a diner owned by her mother to a title bout that puts her real skills to the test—unfolds in fairly formulaic ways. It's tough to fault the filmmakers, adapting a book by Jeff Leen, for sticking to a form of storytelling that's so basic, on-the-nose, and predictable. After all, the sport at the heart of the movie is all about putting on a show, whittled down to a good guy and a bad guy facing off in the ring. As played by Emily Bett Rickards, Mildred is easy to root for, as she faces off against sexist laws, society's expectations for what a woman can and should do, a couple of fighters who don't understand the definition of a clean bout, and a man who seems willing to burn down his reputation and career if it means stopping her from succeeding apart from him. It's a fundamentally compelling tale, because this is about more—perhaps too much for a movie that is so by-the-numbers in its biographical approach—than just wrestling. Meanwhile, Rickards, who has acted on television and some smaller movies before this starring role, exudes such charm, confidence, and strength—of both the internal and external varieties—in this role that it just could make her a star, as well. The movie's timeline isn't exactly, well, exact, but we first meet Mildred in Kansas in the 1930s. She does indeed work as a waitress at a restaurant, and as the daughter of a single mother, Mildred is a single mother herself. After watching a local professional wrestling match, she develops an instant love of the sport and decides she'll become a wrestler herself. That means convincing Billy Wolfe (Josh Lucas), the "heel" or bad guy of the match she saw, to train her. He's skeptical—not only about Mildred's talent, which she quickly proves by taking down a man in the ring in front of Billy, but also about the viability of any woman in this business. It's not just that multiple states have laws in the books banning two women fighting professionally, even in a sport that's more often scripted than not. It's also that he can't imagine people paying to see women wrestle. Mildred makes the point that an athletic and attractive woman in a revealing outfit will always draw a crowd. Since Billy is attracted to her, he can't argue against her case. The story here starts small, following Mildred and Billy through the carnival circuit, where men are offered cash if they can pin her, and through a whirlwind romance that more or less ends as soon as his "Wolfe Pack" begins to form with more women wrestlers. Mildred is too smart and knows too much about men like him to accept his apologies for straying from their relationship with those women, but she's also clever enough to know that she can get what she needs from Billy, a talented promoter. The guy, though, reacts violently when he fears losing control over his business and personal life. As the narrative's scope expands, things become a bit too crowded, as we're introduced to several other women wrestlers—including ones played by Francesca Eastwood, Deborah Ann Woll, Marie Avgeropoulos, and professional wrestler Kailey Farmer—and a whole slew of wheelers and dealers working behind the scenes to spread and legitimize professional wrestling as a form of entertainment. The latter category includes the likes of Jack Pfefer (Walton Goggins), who sees more potential in Mildred than Billy, and Vince McMahon Sr. (Avildsen), whose unseen son likes it when the promoters get involved in the in-the-ring drama. The story is loaded with side players possessing big personalities of their own, bits of historical and wrestling trivia, and ambitions to be about as much in the realms of sports entertainment and contemporary politics as possible. Mildred may always be at the center of the tale, but the whole of it is so spread out that it spreads the specifics of Mildred's story thin. The eventual core of it is the conflict between the wrestler and Billy, who is physically abusive in private and grows publicly dismissive of the star. However, every other element of Mildred's life beyond that relationship and her matches, including her connections to her son (played as an adult by Gavin Casalegno) and Billy's son (played by Tyler Posey), is given short shrift. Queen of the Ring attempts to cover so much that the narrative is noticeably rushed in and shaky with its details. It is, though, a fine story about this overlooked chapter of sporting history. That counts for something, but it's not quite enough here. Copyright © 2025 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
Buy Related Products
|
(for violence including domestic violence, strong language, suggestive
material and smoking)
