‘Queen of the Ring’ Review: Emily Bett Rickards Has Star Power in Starry-Eyed Wrestling Biopic

“I can’t sing and I can’t dance,” Mildred Burke tells her future manager, husband, business partner (and later ex-husband and rival) Billy Wolfe. “But I can tell a story and beat some ass.”

What a story, and what an ass-beating. “Queen of the Ring” is a wide-eyed and inspirational biopic about Burke, born Mildred Bliss, who defied gender norms, broke arbitrary laws separating and limiting the participation of all genders in sports, and shattered the glass ceiling. She was a single mother, an entrepreneur and I hope I never get punched as hard as she can punch. At a time when women’s wrestling was outlawed throughout much of the United States, she not only proved it could be done, but also that it could be profitable as hell.

Mildred Burke is played by Emily Bett Rickards, who is best known for playing the hacker Felicity Smoak on the superhero TV series “Arrow.” If her performance in “Queen of the Ring” is any indication, she may have been better suited to play Wonder Woman. Rickards is a star in every classical sense, a Golden Age of Hollywood spitfire, dominating the screen with forceful line deliveries and a disarming smile. As Burke, she also displays a powerful physicality, convincingly beating her co-stars senseless and repeatedly flashing her muscles — a display of sensuality for her prospective wrestling investors, but more importantly a display of her own personal pride.

“Queen of the Ring” paints a portrait of Burke in thick, vibrant strokes. There are speeches about how wrestling is her destiny, and that’s not subtle. The exposé of misogynistic folly, as Burke wails on drunk men at carnivals to the delight of young impressionable girls in the audience, can’t be ignored. The villainy, represented by Burke’s arch-nemesis June Byers (played by real-life wrestler Kailey Dawn Latimer, aka Kamille), inspires internal screams of “boo” from the audience, or at least in our subconscious. This is not a nuanced film. Then again it’s a film about the evolution of modern wrestling into the comic book gladiator pageantry the fans know and love today. Of course it’s heavy-handed. Why wouldn’t it be? 

Josh Lucas co-stars as Wolfe, a former wrestler whose career hits the skids just as Burke’s takes off, and commits to managing his superstar full time. Lucas knows how to play a heel. Wolfe also recruits one famous lady wrestler after another, all of whom practically tackle him in public, begging for the opportunity to make something of themselves on their own terms and escape the limited expectations of women in American culture. 

Deborah Ann Woll (“Daredevil”) plays Gladys Gillem, Francesca Eastwood plays Mae Young, Damaris Lewis plays Babs Wingo. To a one, these actors seemingly revel in the power that these real-life trailblazers wielded in the ring, with meaty — albeit truncated — subplots that give most of the cast a few moments to briefly claim the whole movie for themselves. Adding to the melange of gender defiance is a subplot about Gorgeous George (Adam Demos), who became the biggest wrestler in the world after he too challenged restrictive norms, and embraced his own theatrical, feminine side. 

“Queen of the Ring” is directed by Ash Avildsen, the son of “Rocky” and “The Karate Kid” filmmaker John G. Avildsen. The elder Avildsen helped reinvigorate the whole sports movie genre; “Rocky,” in particular, effectively altered the template for nearly every underdog film in the last 50 years. The younger Avildsen has material that doesn’t quite fit the elder’s mold, and as such “Queen of the Ring” plays more like a throwback to the early days of sports hero biopics. It’s got the golly gee whiz starstruck adulation of “Pride of the Yankees,” and only a hint of “The Babe Ruth Story’s” ridiculous idolatry. It’s not a terribly realistic film, in many ways, and it’s not a terribly intricate one from a psychological standpoint. But again, these people lived large, and their movie can also get away with it.

Unfortunately “Queen of the Ring” is still incredibly timely. One of the biggest talking points in America today is the argument against allowing trans women in sports, as if trans women aren’t women, and as if cisgender women were all dainty flowers who need political father figures to protect them, by using trumped up, bigoted talking points as an excuse to once again make gender conformity a legal mandate, keeping all women down in the process. “Queen of the Ring” is a vivid reminder of how insultingly illogical and sexist these mentalities always were, and how the defiance of legally-defined gender norms has always been revolutionary and heroic, and shaped the second half of the 20th century in incalculably positive ways.

Watching the cast of “Queen of the Ring” embody real women who were, by choice, mythic countercultural icons who became mainstream sensations and shattered demeaning gender barriers is genuinely inspiring. That the movie is dramatically blunt only drives the point home, and contributes to a narrative that could inspire new audiences the way Mildred Burke inspired her own fans three quarters of a century ago. Again, it’s an incredibly direct motion picture, and sometimes the limitations of its budget put a strain on the ambitious multi-decade narrative, but it’s a film — and a cast — that demands thunderous applause anyway.

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