Oh, look, an origin story so complete, you’ll stop caring about the title character. Wait. What? As a kid, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) spent some time in Ohio with three –for lack of a better word—“family” members: her “sister” (Florence Pugh) wasn’t her sister, but grew up to be the world’s top assassin. Her “mother” (Rachel Weisz) wasn’t her mother, but was a brain scientist researching how to get pigs to act like robots, and her “father” (David Harbour) wasn’t her father, but he was the Russian Captain America. Watching this film, I wanted to know more about pretty much everybody who wasn’t Black Widow. Meh, you get what you get.
One of the curious parts of this origin story is that Pugh, Weisz, and Harbour all speak with Russian accents while Johansson makes no pretense of such – seems odd considering Johansson just got an Oscar nomination for doing a German accent. C’mon, ScarJojo – doncha wanna play along?
The movie begins in Ohio, where we all pretend this is a normal American family, until news comes out that their Russian sleeper cell has been outed and, soon afterwards, dad is hanging off the wing of a plane, pilot mom has been shot, and li’l Widow has been deputized to copilot so they all can fly to Cuba.
Hold up. You made it from Ohio to Cuba in a single-engine airplane with ten-year-old at the wheel, a dude hanging onto the wing, and the Feds in hot pursuit … did aviation security not exist during the Clinton era (“well it’s already in the air, whatchagonnado”)? How about the Air Force? Just askin’.
Once they get to Cuba, the film skips a whole lot. Next thing we know, Natasha is hiding out in-between Avenger films. Not for long, however. Mind controlling gas leads her back home to Budapest and “sister,” “father,” 
and “mother” in that order. Awwwwww, isn’t that sweet? It’s Ohio all over again … in Hungary. Close enough.
I can’t say I was overwhelmed by Fighting with My Family, but Florence Pugh -who is still Fighting with Her “Family”– will likely become a star if she can overcome her name. Given the choice between “Florence Pugh” and “Gugu Mbatha-Raw,” I choose … Steel Frog. Pugh was the best thing about Black Widow and it’s fair to say she can do both action and drama.
As normal films go, Black Widow was fine – occasionally exciting, occasionally thrilling, and occasionally amusing like when describing Harbour trying to fit into his old Captain USSR jumper. As Avengers films go, well, I’ve been spoiled since Black Panther, Ragnarok, Homecoming, and the Thanos twins came out in succession. I didn’t love Captain Marvel (don’t we already have a Captain?) and I didn’t love Black Widow. I’d fear this was a gender thing, but I wasn’t Gugu over the first Captain America or Thor films, either. Maybe there’s hope for sequels. But mostly, I wanted to know more about assassin sister, brain-manipulator mom, and Captain dad.
Natasha’s tale? Well, I tend to like them better when there’s a Boris attached.
Take a seat and hie buckle to fasten
For a history of Black Widow harrassin’
Hey, I can relate
The Avengers are great
But what was that about a sister assassin?
Rated PG-13, 134 Minutes
Director: Cate Shortland
Writer: Eric Pearson
Genre: I got a movie, too!
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Florence Pugh believers
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Misogynists
