“Queen of the Ring” - Film Review
Eight years ago, Netflix released GLOW, a television series about a scrappy group of misfit women who found solace in the unlikeliest of places: women’s wrestling. Suddenly, their mundane lives were filled with glitter, spandex, and camaraderie, and their stories played out with a neon ’80s backdrop. While not an actual prequel, the newly released Queen of the Ring can act as a precursor to the series, because the real-life Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling would not exist were it not for the star of this new film. Queen of the Ring tracks the transformation of a single mother who worked in a diner to the world’s first million-dollar female athlete and women’s wrestling’s longest-reigning world champion.
Born Mildred (Millie) Bliss, but using the stage name Mildred Burke (Emily Bett Rickards), it didn’t take much for Mildred to dream of a life beyond her small Kansas town. What caught her attention was the art of wrestling. In the 1930s, few women were involved in the sport of wrestling, but as soon as Millie got a taste of it, she refused to let it go. Billy Wolfe (Josh Lucas), a local wrestling promoter, agreed to train her. Queen of the Ring follows their tumultuous relationship in and out of the ring leading up to the Women’s Wrestling World Championship match in 1954.
Sumerian Pictures
Out of the gate, Bett Rickards announces herself as a force to be reckoned with. Those who know her from her long stint in the world of DC Comics Arrowverse tv shows on The CW will find her likeness on the film’s poster to be unrecognizable. Bett Rickards trades her blonde hair in for dark brown and has muscles that make her look like she belongs on the Arrowverse shows she left behind. Bett Rickards is in nearly every scene, and portrays Millie as a young single mother who wanted something beyond what the world around her was willing to give her. Queen of the Ring is a reintroduction to Bett Rickards as an actor, one that is as hard-hitting as the woman she portrays.
Speaking of the real-life Mildred Bliss, it’s truly an incredible life she led. Every update that comes after the film ends is enough to spur a film of its own. Millie started her own wrestling association, traveled with the sport to countries around the world to help them create their own associations, and was posthumously inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2002. The life of Mildred Bliss is a remarkable one, and that’s why it’s understandable that the filmmakers wanted to cover so much of it in Queen of the Ring. It’s a problem many biopic screenwriters run into when writing a script. If a person has done enough to warrant a film made about them, there’s surely a laundry list of accolades and moments that would make for incredible scenes. The challenge is in editing that list down and hyper-focusing on the span of a few years or months that can act as a distillation of the subject’s life.
The issue of having a subject as impressive as Mildred is that two hours cannot adequately contain the ways she shaped the world of wrestling as we know it today. Queen of the Ring covers over two decades of her life, and it simply moves too fast to really let the emotional punches land and convey the immense effort that went into the wrestling revolution that unfolded at the hands of Millie. She went from wrestling novice to decent amateur overnight, and other important moments, like the inclusion of Black women on the wrestling tour, are similarly touched on briefly. The lead performances of Bett Rickards and Lucas are immensely compelling. The two actors are more than capable of bearing the emotional brunt and overarching thematic notes of the film without having to document every moment of Mildred’s life with Billy.
Sumerian Pictures
Queen of the Ring has quite a few things in its corner that work exceptionally well. Aside from the performances, the choreography of the fights are downright thrilling. The film explains that while most wrestling outcomes are predetermined, there are some known as a shoot fight. This is when the wrestlers are allowed to fight, no holds barred, and a winner is crowned in an unscripted manner. Queen of the Ring features a few of these fights, with the most dynamic being the one that opens the film: the 1954 Women’s Wrestling World Championship. Had Queen of the Ring framed itself wholly around the lead-up to this fight, it could have found a tighter narrative to wrap itself around while still offering great insight into the life of Mildred.
“It'll be lipstick and dynamite.” It’s a phrase often repeated to describe the world of women’s wrestling. The men of the era are cautious about believing there could be any interest in the sport, but Millie, along with her fellow female wrestlers, proves them wrong. The fight to have women’s sports seen on the same level as men’s is a battle still being waged today. Queen of the Ring is a powerhouse showcase for Bett Rickards, but one that spends a little too much time dancing around the ring.
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