You enjoyed Chick Fight! It was released yesterday and it’s time for us to take a look at all we think about this movie. You already know that we love it and it’s almost perfect but we’re going to analyze why. Let’s hit like a girl!
Here we go!
Anna is not having the best time of her life when the movie begins. Her business barely pays the bills, and to top it all, she discovers that her father is pansexual and in a relationship with Chuck, a divorce attorney, which leaves her in shock. Her only support is Charleen, her best friend.
But things get worse when her business is burned to the ground … and she doesn’t have insurance. So she is left without a business, without a job and without money. She reaches her limit and that is the moment her journey begins. As they say, sometimes you have to get to the bottom to see some light.
Charleen shows Anna her way of getting over the shit life sometimes gives her: a fight club. Bear, the club manager and Charleen introduce Anna to that world of fights, rings, punches and screaming. Anna doesn’t understand why they have taken her there, but for Charleen and the others that is their therapy. Anna fights for the first time … or tries, but is knocked unconscious.
When her eyes open she meets Dr. Roy, Bear’s brother. When their eyes connect, they both feel something, a shudder that tells them that this person will be important in their lives.
Anna just tries to get on with her life ignoring that club, but it is impossible when Bear and Charleen show her that her mother founded that club and helped the women who make it up be themselves, find their voice and fight for what they want. She helped them not to be afraid.
The death of her mother is very recent for Anna, she misses her and just … she wants her mother to be proud of her, wherever she is, she wants to continue her legacy. What Anna doesn’t realize is that she shouldn’t. She must find her own way, her own voice and feel proud of herself, without more.
In the midst of all this, Olivia and her friends enter the scene. They think Anna is a slob, timid, too … insignificant to fight for what she wants and to be in their fight club. Anna’s pride speaks for her and challenges them to a fight.
This is where the story truly begins. That challenge forces Anna to train and start the journey of knowing herself, of finding her own voice. As she trains and wins fights at the club, she finds more and more strength within herself and begins to fight for what she has always wanted: a business of her own. And when the world gets too hard, she just kicks the shit out of one of the girls at the club in a fight.
Finally, Anna begins to understand what this club means to these women. It is a safe place, the place where they can be themselves and just … let go and release the tension of day to day, the tension that the world in which they live makes them feel. It is their therapy, both physical and emotional. They all need that feeling of sisterhood. In the ring they may be rivals but, in reality, they all support and respect each other no matter what.
However, it is not enough. Anna somehow hoped that it would solve her life … but it doesn’t. She is still without money, unable to get her business. The club hasn’t made a big difference at all. Only it has and Anna knows it. She would never have been able to dare to ask for a loan for a business without that club. She would never have been able to outdo herself without the strength that club has shown her to have.
But Anna is afraid. The fight with Olivia is close and she doesn’t feel… that it’s of any use. She just gives up. She throw in the towel. That’s what fear does to you. Makes you give up before fighting. It makes you fall and you do not have the strength to get up more. But Anna finds that strength and gets up from where she is. She comes out of the deep darkness into which fear has introduced her and fights for one more day.
She wins the fight with Olivia but she also gains something else, her respect (Anna has shown Olivia everything she is worth), but above all, respect and pride for herself. Almost without realizing it, she found herself, found her voice and her path. Unintentionally, she put her own fears, demons and limits to the test and that led her on a journey where she realized her own strength and what she really wanted to do with her life.
That’s when the club is in danger. The police arrive and everyone must leave to avoid being involved but … Anna stays. She is the owner of the club now and will go under with it. That place … is the sanctuary for all those women, for herself. And she does not think to abandon it, it would be like abandoning them, herself and she is not going to do it.
She stands up for that club, for what it means to all women, she supports them … and they support her. They all pay bail for Anna and get her out of jail. Now, Anna can sell the club and pay for all her debts … she just won’t. They all need that club and there may be another way. Anna finds that way and, along with an unexpected ally in court, goes free, to be the captain she was always destined to be.
In the middle of her journey she even met the love of her life, Dr. Roy. And I love them together! Their scenes were so funny and cute. Full of flirtation from the beginning because they both have feelings for each other, but don’t dare to take the step … until they do.
But the best thing about this film is that is not its main objective, if not something secondary. The movie is really about how Anna and all those women found their own inner strength, how they raised their voices and found themselves, how they overcame their fears. And how when women come together, we are capable of everything.
We need more of this. Of women supporting women. And Malin Akerman does wonders with this movie to show that and to show us how fear is a part of life but the key is how we deal with it. We can do what we set out to do. We just have to dare to look inside ourselves and embark on a crazy journey that may not make sense at first or was unexpected, but which will become the journey of our lives.
As I mentioned, the only thing I didn’t like about the movie is Olivia at the beginning. I don’t think it was necessary to make it a sexually explicit role, because it doesn’t fit with the spirit of the story or with what they want to tell. They could have been more subtle … but it is a trivial detail that doesn’t stain or change at all the message of this film and the good taste in the mouth that it leaves us.
